xox Amanda

Whew these weeks are just flying by! The kids have been on school holidays for the past three weeks, so we’ve been super busy and I haven’t had time to really sit down at the computer, let alone think about writing a blog post. I have photographed some (another pretty layette for EB) but haven’t had time to edit them! They go back to school on Monday at which point things may get a little quieter, at least for a few hours a day.

Piper had another ultrasound this week to check on her hips (previously diagnosed as having hip dysplasia) and there has already been so much improvement! I have been worried that she’d have to go into a brace (or have surgery, as the GP freaked me out by saying…) but as she’s worn in either a sling or a wrap almost the entire day, her hips have gone from being only 48% covered by the socket, to being 64% in a little under 6 weeks. Matt and I have both been praying like crazy and so have so many of our friends all around the world (thank you!). She still needs to have some follow up appointments with the GP and we are still waiting on an appointment with the paediatrician, but at this stage things are looking good.

Annnnd… a kitten joined our little menagerie of pets. We picked her up on wednesday evening. Back in March, Matt and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary, and this little kitten was his gift to me, but had to wait until she was grown up enough. There was a lady at our Church whose cat had escaped their home and gotten pregnant and they were looking for homes for the two resulting kittens. I jokingly asked Matt if I could have one since it was our Anniversary that day and he said yes. Wasn’t expecting that answer! I called her Natsumi after a character in one of my favourite anime’s.

I finished knitting some frilly little booties for Piper. They’re huge and fall off pretty easily. Pattern is “First Step Baby Boots” by Julia Noskova.

Some instagram shots from the last couple of weeks:

xox Amanda

xox Amanda

I am in love with this headband by Grace Designs. It’s in “big girl” size though, much too big for Piper, but I got sneaky and folded it over on itself behind her head since she was snoozing away. Gosh Piper just has the chubbiest cheeks! She looks even chubbier in photos I think.

I finished reading “How Do You Tuck In a Superhero?” yesterday too. Great book! Full of funny little anecdotes and stories from a Mama of 5 boys (and she’s had another baby, a little girl, since the book was published). It isn’t a “parenting” book really, or a how to at all, and it reads rather like reading months of blog posts packed into a book. But I found that to be a convenient way to read actually. I’d sneak a few pages here and there, before being called by one of the kids, or needing to do something etc ad pretty soon I was all done. Seriously this book had me laughing from pretty much the first page. I know I’ve only got 2 boys amongst my 6, but some of the stuff just seemed like “big” family stuff, and others had me thinking I should loosen up a little on how crazy I let (or rather, don’t let) the boys get. Anyway, definitely worth the read. The author also has a really funny blog, Testosterhome which I absolutely recommend checking out.

I’m now moving on to reading “The Resolution for Women.” I’m just a few pages in, and I’m honestly not sure what to expect. I saw it sitting on the shelf in Koorong, and they had a storewide 20% off sale, and something drew me in and urged me to pick it up and buy it, and so I did.

xox Amanda

(photographed on Feb 3rd)

Piper is growing like a weed. She’s chunked up so quickly. So tiny at birth, and a scant 5 and a half weeks later, she’s a little chubbalub. I do love it, but gosh how fast that tiny newborn stage flies past! I haven’t even taken any photos this week (in fact, I think the last time I took photos of her *not* with my iphone was the day she turned 4 weeks old… arghhh bad mama).

(photographed on Feb 8th)

I keep wondering why all these people ask me whether she’s a “good baby”. What makes a good baby? I know they probably mean “Does she sleep all night?” “Does she feed easy?” “Does she cry all the time?” or something along those lines. But honestly. GOOD baby?! There is no such thing as a bad baby (unless you’re my sister in law, and I think her baby was in fact a rambunctious toddler when they dubbed him the bad baby). I always says yes, of course she is a good baby! She fits into our family so perfectly it’s like she’s always been here. That isn’t to say she’s all mellow and chilled out, all the time. She screams for a few hours (or so) each night. It’s just “that time of the night”. I will put her in the sling (she practically lives there anyway) and rock and dance and walk endless circles around the house until she finally calms down. Then I might sit down and she may even stay asleep. But usually she’ll sense that I’m sitting, and pop her eyes open until I get up and walk around again. Pretty clever, this little girl. She breastfeeds perfectly (and often, as her cute baby rolls show) and at night she is perfectly content to snuggle into my arm and barely wake me up when she’s hungry again.

(photographed on Feb 18th)

Last Sunday I turned 30. I know for some people this is a big deal, and I think honestly I wanted it to BE a big deal, but when you have 6 kids and bills coming out of your ears, well, there is no such thing as making a big deal over a birthday. Even if that birthday is the start of a new decade. We did however travel to Sydney for my Papa’s 80th (we share a birthday). Lilly vomited about 7 times on the drive there. What should have been a 6 hour drive there turned into an 8 and a 1/2 hour drive there. Piper screamed every time the car stopped or slowed down or got stuck in traffic (which was almost every half an hour, give or take) and I honestly wondered why I thought it was a good idea to attend my Papa’s party at all. We got there in the end though. Matt and I even managed to sneak out for icecream at Cold Rock after the kids were all asleep (except for Piper who came with us, of course) and my parents watched them.

Piper’s birth announcements arrived yesterday. Love the way they turned out.

xox Amanda

If you want to follow me, you can search for “mskeeys” or via my email address if you know it I would love to “see” you there.

xox Amanda

We also settled on a middle name for Piper yesterday. Evangeline. I love her name and think it’s just perfectly “her”.

This week has been pretty hectic. Piper turned a week old on monday (seriously, on one hand it feels like she’s already been here “forever”, and on the other… didn’t I JUST give birth?!), Jakob started high school, Lilly started kindergarten, and of course Maddy and Isaiah both went up a grade. I cannot believe this year I have a kid in high school, a kid in kindy, and a newborn. So far Lilly has taken well to school, and has come home happy each day. Jakob is still in the excited stage because he changes classes and has a timetable and whatnot. I wonder how long the excitement will last? We are lucky in that our school goes from Prep all the way to High school, so the kids are all still on the same campus and basically not too much changes from one section to the next.

It is strange only having the two at home. Piper hangs out in the sling almost all day long, but Zoe is becoming a little whirlwind of trouble! She is hilarious and cheeky and so much fun, but ohhh she makes us work too! She has already tried to carry Piper out of my bedroom, drawn on Piper’s face with black pen (lucky we busted her a few seconds after she started, and it wiped right off) and she is constantly climbing allover me to peer into the sling and lean in to give “Pipi” a kiss.

The studio still isn’t quite done, but obviously it is useable. The floors are in, and the electricity is more or less wired up (however I still can’t use it, so we’re running leads from the house down to the studio). The walls are in and so are the skirting boards and the windows have been boxed in (or whatever you call it). The walls and skirting boards need to be sanded and then painted, and then I think it’s done. I’m not having Matt start on those until I feel like Piper is “over” having me take newborn photographs. The last thing I want is dust and paint everywhere while I’m trying to shoot

Little Piper looks like such a chubbalub in this shot! She’s actually really tiny, but I think this “pose” brings out all of her rolls and puffs her cheeks, making her look a lot chunkier than she actually is.

xox Amanda

Fair warning, below follows the “birth story” so if that’s a bit TMI for you, feel free to scroll down to get to the photo instead.

Early Sunday evening I was feeling a bit “off” and crampy, but nothing major. My parents had just arrived from Sydney to stay for the week, and I casually mentioned to Matt and my Mum that “something” might happen but that I was pretty sure it wouldn’t. By later that night I wasn’t feeling anything anymore, and so went to bed as usual. I think I fell asleep pretty quickly too! Around 3am I woke up feeling a bit of pain in my back (all of my babies have been posterior) but again I was pretty sure it was nothing. Regardless I couldn’t sleep (seriously, I was hoping it was something, but at the same time, telling myself it wasn’t so I didn’t get my own hopes up?! weird much…haha) so I woke Matt up to tell him that I was going out to make some tea and whatever. Honestly, these pains were there, kind of crampy “grabby” in my back and lower stomach but not actually really painful, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to time them (had a free app on my phone for just such an occasion!) because of past experience. I started timing them while I made myself some tea (really strong infusion of red raspberry leaf), chucked on a load of laundry, did the dishes, think I might have checked email!! and then sat down to watch tv since I was too hyped up to sleep. The contraction timer was telling me they were coming about 4 mins apart and for about 40 seconds long but I didn’t really “feel” like they were strong enough. Either way, I was going to stay at home for longer but I suddenly felt a gush – I was sure my water had broken, but nope, bright red blood. Now this freaked me out! In any of my labors, I have never ever experienced bright red blood before. I woke Matt up by turning the lights all on, yelling at him while shaking him (I maybe could have been more gentle with the wake up, but I was panicking) and after a quick call to the hospital, and a quick knock on the door to wake my Mum up to come upstairs to listen for Zoe (oh, the others were all having a sleep over at my sister in laws), off we raced.
The whole way there (10 min trip) I was praying my heart out that nothing was wrong with the baby. I realised I hadn’t actually felt her move since I’d gone to bed at around 11.30 and now all this bright red blood was scaring me half to death. The contractions were still consistent (and about 3 – 4 mins apart but getting gradually stronger and “longer” in duration) but still very manageable. That short trip felt like the longest trip of my life. When we got there, the phone to be let into the labor ward wasn’t working!! and we couldn’t get the attention of anyone inside. Eventually someone picked up the phone (via our mobile, thank goodness for technology) and let us in. I got checked into the room at top speed, hooked up to a monitor and bub’s heartbeat was beautiful and strong. At this point I posted a couple of shots to instagram I was already 5cm dilated but the pain was still pretty light. After maybe 10 mins I guess, they started getting worse but I handled things with controlled breathing for awhile longer. Eventually I turned to my favourite, gas+air. Apparently I am HILARIOUS on gas. But then again, that might just be that I THINK I’m hilarious… either way is good by me. At one point I was in the middle of a contraction but laughing sooo hard at the same time that the monitor couldn’t track baby’s heartbeat. To speed things along, I’ll jump to when I suddenly couldn’t handle it anymore, and asked why they couldn’t just give me a caesarian now please? I am pretty sure I made a really compelling argument (something like I didn’t want to remember pushing, so they might as well???) and although I knew I didn’t actually want one, what I DID want was for someone to tell me how reasonable a suggestion that was! LOL. Pretty sure that was the transition phase Pushing… ohhh the part I hate the most. Wouldn’t give up my gas, no no no. I didn’t have to push for too long, I remember the midwife telling me “there’s her head!” and I was SURE that meant she’d crowned and was “right there” if you know what I mean. And then a few moments later she said “She’s crowning, stop stop stop” and I thought WHAT! you told me that had already happened! I was so cranky about that (in my head) but when she’d said it, it did give me that extra “drive” and focus to keep on with the pushing. Those midwives really know what they’re doing. She was still in the bag of waters! I remember vaguely being aware of the midwives discussing whether they’d noticed my waters breaking or not, and I *think* I may have grunted that they didn’t. Anyway, sooo after I think another couple of pushes out she popped (not literally, I wish) and up her squirmy little body came. All I could do was stare at her and say “hi hi hi” about a million times and stroke her beautiful (but goop covered) hair. She went to the breast immediately, before Matt had even cut the cord, and there she stayed for probably an hour. And that’s about it. All in all, I was in labor from the first little barely-there contraction, to when she was born at 7.43am, for around 4 hours. Not my shortest (Lilly was born in under an hour) but certainly not the longest (I was in labor with Jakob for about 2 days…yikes).
After a shower (for me) we were transferred up to the ward, where I rested with Piper while waiting to be allowed to go home. After a baby check for Piper and the midwives checking me over (again) we got the OK and left the hospital at around 2pm. Would have been earlier but I had to wait for Matt to get back with the baby seat in the car! I was only 37 weeks (although again, past experience meant I knew she could come at any time) so he hadn’t installed it yet and had to go home to do it!
Although I remember saying right after she was born, and I could hear the woman in the room next to me making all kinds of noises (I think this was the only birth that when I was pushing I was very quiet) that I was glad I NEVER had to do that again! I feel kind of sad that Piper may well be our “last”. Birth is exhausting and messy and painful (and messy!) but after a couple of days, I can look back on the experience again with a certain fondness. Of course, that might just be that I’m still on a high and also looking at Piper’s beautiful face and smelling her sweet newborn smell could be addling my brain. I guess we’ll never know

The details:
Piper (no middle name yet) born Jan 23, 2012 @ 7.43am.
Weight: 3.030 kilos (or 6.7lbs) and 47cm long.

xox Amanda

I think he looks like a grumpy old man in this one, haha.

He really does have eyes though!

Poor Lilly was SO so sick today, but she just had to have a snuggle! She told me he made her feel better. Poor Lil has had a fever all day

I plan on spinning his fur into yarn as he grows I’ve never done it before, haha, but I am going to learn! I remember saying that about knitting a few years ago…(and now look at me)

xox Amanda

(my new baby english angora rabbit, and my 35 week tummy obscuring the view of my very swollen feet).

xox Amanda