Mother's Day

Bit late I know, but when do I have time to do anything anymore?

So, how was my first Mother's Day? Fabulous.

In the morning (not too early) Bayli climbed into bed with Scott and I for a cuddle. While we were having our morning cuddle she gave me the present she picked out on her very own (Scott assures me it's true). I was very impressed that she thought to get me a super-duper-u-beaut-top-of-the-range paper trimmer for my scrapbooking. (Not sure when I'll get time to use it now is the only thing :P)

After I got my present Scott headed off to the kitchen to make his Super-Sunday-Breakfast (incidentally, he hasn't made this for me since before we were married). Mum had come to stay for the weekend so she joined us on the deck for a terrific Mother's Day breakfast.

Not long after breakie Scott's folks arrived. We then had more present opening. I was lucky enough to get two more presents, one from Scott -- a new jaffle maker so I can make more pies -- and one from Mum -- two tops, some new shower sponge thingys and some scrapbooking paper. We gave our presents to our mothers too. I think their favourites were the photos of Scott/Bayli for his mum and Me/Bayli for mine, along with the mini photo books I had made for them with photos of them with Bayli. So it seems this Mother's Day was all about Bayli!!

I suppose I may as well fill you in on the happenings since then...

The renovations are coming along. The new study has been completed (currently used as the nursery though while Bayli is so young), and the lounge room is sans wardrobe. It has already made a huge difference without the wardrobe in the room, it looks much bigger. Not an awful lot left to do in this room now either, just the fiddly bits which usually take just as long as the main jobs. We've been looking at paint colours too and have narrowed it down to a few favourites.

Bayli still has some jaundice. This had us sent off to the doctors last week to get blood tests to check on her liver function. This was HORRIBLE!! They needed to get enough blood for three small vials and then two other small test tube type thingys and the only way they can get it is to cut her foot and squeeze it out drop by drop. She screamed the whole time. Her levels came back high from this first test so we had to go back on Monday for another round of tests. Not quite as bad this time, they didn't need as much blood and she only screamed most of the time. Found out yesterday that the levels have dropped slightly so we get to go back for another go in a few weeks to check that they're still going down. We're just grateful that it doesn't seem to be too serious.

Ooh, and she's having trouble getting rid of her wind. Normally we could get something from the chemist to help with this (have tried everything else) but with her liver tests not quite right we can't give her any. So it's fun for everyone when she's got wind pain. I just hope she gets through it before she gets too used to being held so much or it's going to be very hard to break this habit.

And that's all

Bayli has landed

(Posted by Scott)

Just a quick post, though a lot has happened.

Firstly, and most importantly, Bayli Robinson has entered the world and apparently it's important that I pass on the following facts.

1. She was born at 4:16 am on April 16th.
2. She weighed 7lb 3ozs (3280 g, I think it was)
3. She and her mother are both now at home and doing well.
4. She is very cute (and here's a picture to prove it).


I took Kel to the doctor for a regular appointment on tuesday at about 4 pm. She'd been having contractions on and off for a couple of days but they had started to get a bit more serious-- ie, more regular-- that day. The doc (a locum) rang the hospital to see if she should go in (different policies at different hospitals) and they basically said not yet. At about 6pm Kel rang the hospital from home because the contractions were getting worse. The midwife said, come in now if you want but , seeing it's your first baby they'll probably go away. You could probably come in tomorrow.

We got to the hospital at 8pm and Kel was admitted. At 11.30 pm, after basicall being ignored since we arrived (not quite, but close enough) I went to tell the midwife that Kel's pains were getting worse. The woman conducted an examination and said, "Oh, you're 8cm dialated, we'd better get you to the birthing suite."

We went up stairs and not a lot happened for a couple more hours. No waters breaking, nothing at all. I asked, "When do you do something else instead of us all sitting here for the rest of the week.?"

There was another examination and Kel's waters broke. So, for the next hour or so there was pushing but not a lot else. So I said, "Do we do this all day or is there something you can do to see what's happening."

She did another examination and discovered that the baby hadn't really moved at all. A doctor was called. The baby's head was apparently twisted around slightly and Kel's contractions weren't strong enough, in fact they'd almost stopped. The first problem was rectified, a drug type thing was given to strengthen the contractions and about 1/2 an hour later, our little girl entered the world much to Kel's relief.

Minor complication and lazy midwife aside, everything went well. Bayli was healthy and screaming. Kel was recovering. I was busy making phone calls to excited grandparents.

And, a few days before Bayli was born, my father and I decided to pull down a couple of walls and put a couple up somewhere else. When we started this we thought we still had three weeks to go. Of course, Bayli had other ideas and I was off at the hospital while Dad worked. We (mainly 'he', ably asisted by Marty) got the new master bedroom lined in time for Kel to come home but we only just finished the rest yesterday.

When I say finished I mean finished the main bits. We still have to do the skirting boards and cornices and what not, but the walls and doors are in place. And I must say it all looks pretty good. Woo hoo.

The carpeted bit you can see in the picture was the main bedroom. Tiny. It (plus the hall way near Pip) are now the lounge room. Once the built in wardrobes are removed it will be plenty big enough. To the left of the screen door (which is the back door) is an office, and the photo was taken inside the new L-shaped master bedroom. (Pip is framed in the doorway. There will eventually be build in robes just out of shot to the right.) It's a big improvement-- and nobody trusted me originally... That'll learn 'em.

That's all from me. I tried to post this a couple of days ago but blogger wouldn't let me upload any pictures which kinda defeated the purpose. But now it is done.

This is Scott speaking

Did we say I wasn't working? No. Surely we were jesting. I am working as a trades assistant for the biggest electrical company in the South Burnett. Well, I don't know if they actually are the biggest, but they must be close.

The work is alright. The money is great. At the moment i am still on the three month trial thingy so I am getting paid casual rates but working full time hours. So, $25 an hour. Woo hoo. It will go down to $20 if they decide to keep me on, which is still way more than I've earned previously. And it's all going pretty well, I think, though I do have to get up early in the morning.

On friday, my parents will be coming over to stay for a week or something and knock out some walls. Then, hopefully, put up some different ones. We are changing the house from four bedrooms to four bedrooms and an office without actually making it any bigger and not really losing any usable space. Should be great. And maybe, if Kel hangs on, we can have it all done before the baby comes. That may not happen though.

She's been all itchy lately and thought nothing of it, until she went looking on the internet, where all the greatest medical diagnoses are made. She found something called Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP). It involves livers and hormones and lots of itching. And what it basically means is that bile acid builds up in the mother, which leads to it building up in the baby. It can result in premature labour and some other complications. Anyway the doctor (not Doctor Nick) thinks she really does have it and we are waiting on test results.

If she does have ICP we may have a baby by the end of next week. But... But...

But we ain't ready.

Actually, I think we are but it's still kind of scary.

So, Kel will be quiting her job (at the place where she doesn't get paid anyway) because she's supposed to be resting.

What else? We're teaching Pip to jump through a hoop on command. She still only does it for treats but it's a start.

Sharon and Craig visited at Easter. We went out to Coomba Falls near Maidenwell and had a picnic. It was very nice. It was also very nice to have our first official visitors. Take note the rest of you slackers (though the next couple of weeks may not be the best time to turn up unannounced).

That's all. (except, the posts title is what is is because my father reckons he sometimes has trouble working out who's writing them. See the things I do for you...)

Did we say Scott had a job? Nooo, we were surely mistaken. As it turns out it wasn't really working out so it's back to the employment ads for us. Mainly Scott though.

I've applied officially for one job (also called into local childcare centre but no joy there) and am waiting to hear from them. They don't know I'm pregnant yet (Surprise!) but I figure I'll address that when (if?) I get to the interview. It's for a Family Day Care Coordinator, working at their office in Kingaroy. It would be four days per week and the plan is, if I get the job then I'll take a couple of weeks off when I have the baby and then Scott will stay home and be Mr Mum while I go back to work. I have to say I'm quite hopeful because I think it sounds like something I'd really enjoy. I am being selective about what I apply for though because I think I would have to really enjoy it to be able to go back to work so quickly after having the baby.

I'm starting to reach the point where I'm looking forward to not being pregnant anymore. I can't wait to be able to get comfortable again! Just over eight weeks to go and it's starting to get very real and a little scary. We have two antenatal classes to go to, one on the 29th March and the other on the 5th April. They're on Saturdays and go from 9-3/4? We missed this lot of evening classes so we didn't have a lot of choice.

Pip (the puppy) is doing very well. She's still timid with new people (taking her to cricket the other week proved very traumatic for her) but she has definitely improved. She graduates from puppy pre-school this Friday (and judging by her growing excitement over the other puppies each week, she will miss this very much) and she is doing pretty well with her basic training. We'll have to pass a test too, or they'll take her off us! Kidding, there will be a quiz for us (with prizes!) but there's nothing critical riding on it. Apparently one lady in one of the previous classes stressed out so much over the thought of the quiz that she actually spent hours studying for it and got every question right (where's the fun for everyone else I ask you!?!).

And now back to me...

I've been volunteering on a Monday at the local Endos op shop in town. It's been soooo good to get out of the house and do something (it would be nicer if I got paid for it of course), definitely helping to keep me sane. I work with two other ladies who are a bit older (it would be nice to have someone there closer to my age) but they're both lovely so I'm quite lucky I guess.

A little bit about Scott...

Unfortunately Scott's cricket team missed out (just) on making it into the finals, although this does mean that we can look forward to spending some weekends at home without having to drive to anywhere for hours. Having said that, it looks like at least Scott will be driving down to Brisbane this weekend for Temptation (Sale of the Century) auditions on Saturday. Fingers crossed that he gets on and wins us lots of prizes!! We'll also be heading back to Brisbane on the 29th March (yes, the same day that our all-day antenatal class is on) for Scott's cricket presentation dinner. After that though, it's at least two weekends in a row at home. Hopefully.

And some visitors...

Sharon and Craig look like being our first official non-family visitors soon. They'll be coming up for a couple of days over the Easter break which will be really nice. (Although Sarah keeps telling me that she's going to come up mid-week "really soon", so if she pulls her finger out she might just make it first.) We'll have to suss out a nice picnic spot or something, as long as it doesn't rain that is!

That's about all I can think of for now. Scott's in charge of the next post so keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks.

Valentine's Day

First things first-- Molly is no longer Molly. She stopped being Molly before we picked her up. Her name is now Pip.

She is going pretty well. She still doesn't come when you call and is sometimes a bit skittish, but she runs around playing like an idiot sometimes, follows you from a distance when you leave the room or something, and loves to lie in the bean bag. It's even better if someone is in the room with her.

She gets the stitches from her desexing out on Saturday (which is good, seeing we were apparently supposed to keep her quite and haven't really been successful. She has some internal bleeding which is reasonably common and not all that serious, unless it turns into a hernia, or something like that.)

It looks like she might still take a while to train though. Put a leash on her and she either runs around as usual-- which is all fine until she reaches the end of the leash. Then the second option for her behaviour takes over-- she lies down and pretty much refuses to move. Oh well.

Today is Valentine's Day and I find it quite surreal that this is only the second such day that Kel and I have seen together and yet everything has changed so much. We were engaged before we'd seen a Valentine's... We may have mentioned this previously, but back on the first one we decided that we weren't allowed to buy anything for each other. We had to make something. (We are allowed to spend about $10 on buying stuff with which to make the gifts though.)

This year, I made a plaque thing from plaster of paris that had 'Kelly' written in several languages-- Arabic, Hebrew, some Japanese thing (don't remember the name exactly), elvish and a few basically dead languages. I still think it was a good idea (and Kel says she likes it) but it didn't turn out as well as I was hoping (the colour was the main problem). And Kel basically did a little album with photos and scrap-booking type stuff in which she said some very nice things about me in a little album. Now that was great and so much better than some hallmark card and a box of chocolates or something like that. Hopefully we'll be doing similar things 50 years from now.

Anyways, it's nearly 8:30pm on Valentine's Day and I can think of better things to do...

Notes from a bludger

Ah, this is the life. Here I am sitting around doing not much of anything while Scott goes out an earns us a living... it's fabulous. And only a little boring. And it's only day two. By the end of the week I'll be phoning random people from the phone book just to say hi.

Seriously though, it's been nice to have a couple of days at the house after the last couple of weeks. We've been running around like mad things trying to get everything organised, mainly at the unit. Hopefully all that hard work is about to pay off. I spoke to the real estate agent today and she said that they were having a 'showing' today and they were expecting a few people to go along so any minute now they're going to call with a list of perspective tenants...Any minute.

I'd also like to set the record straight for all those people who Scott has been telling that I'm going to be sitting around doing nothing while he goes out to work. I've done heaps in the last two days. There's been washing (hung in the carport because it hasn't stopped raining), tidying, filing, cooking dinners. Scott decided to come home for lunch today so I even made us a cooked lunch. I told him not to get too excited because that won't last.

I have been working on my resume but I won't go to any of the nearby childcare centres just yet. We want to give the puppy a chance to settle in a bit first. I'll leave her on her own for short periods of the day at first so she doesn't fret too much if we are both out all day.

Scott is insisting that I tell everyone about my 'episode' at the Kingaroy hospital the other day. So, here it is:
We went down to register at the hospital so I can have my injections, antinatal visits and, ultimately, have the baby there. So we were sitting down filling out the paperwork when I started to get faint. I was getting bad so Scott went and asked the nurse if I could lay down somewhere. Next thing I know they've brought out a wheelchair and wheeled me into the emergency ward (for some reason the emergency and antinatal departments are in the same section). They put me on a bed and the nurse takes all my obs and I say that I don't want to see a doctor because I'll be fine in a few minutes. So the nurse fills out a bunch of paperwork too, takes my obs again after 10mins, checks again to make sure I don't want to see a doc and says we can go.

As we tried to leave the nurse was giving the doctor a run-down of my case and the doctor saw us and said that I couldn't leave without them doing an ECG to check that my heart was OK. We went back to the bed and they sent another nurse in to do the test. A few minutes later the doctor came in and started talking about...well I'm not quite sure, but it sounded a little scary. Then he finally told me that I needed to go to a GP and get them to give me a 24hr heart monitor.

Hmm...Didn't actually have a local GP at the time, so that afternoon we went down to DR Robinson's office (no we weren't playing dress-ups, that's a whole other story). After waiting for two hours we walked into his office and he took one look at the results of the ECG and said "Baulderdash" (or maybe it was poppycock, or fiddlesticks -- whatever it was came straight from the 1950s). Turned out that the hospital doctor was new and didn't know what he was talking about. Let's hope he doesn't deliver the baby.

And if you made it through all that, wait for the next one I write after being at home on my own for four days.

A Dog's LIfe

Well, tomorrow I start work. Actually, I've been working for a last couple of weeks, but I'll get paid for what I do tomorrow. That will be nice. We've spent a lot of money in the last two weeks without any coming in. I must say though, it feels like a lot longer than two weeks. It feels like we've been driving backwards and forwards to Brisbane for months.

As for work, I start at 7:30 in the morning. Weather permitting (it's been raining on and off here today) I'll ride my push-bike. Did a trial run today and it took about 4 minutes. I like that. No stress in the mornings and a bit of a chance to unwind on the way home in the afternoon.

Kel is thinking about looking for work too. She started working on her resume today. She'll probably be bored stupid in a week if she does nothing. Whether anyone will employ her is another thing.

She had us cleaning today. The study does look heaps better though.

And we didn't clean all day. This morning we visited the RSPCA in Kingaroy and ordered ourselves a puppy. We can't pick he up until Wednesday (because she still has to be de-sexed) which is a bit of a bummer. They were calling her Bindi but we changed her name to Molly. She is really quite-- possibly didn't have the best start in life-- but hopefully we can cure her of that. We've bought her a bed and my parents visiting on the weekend (for Kel's birthday) are bringing all the stuff they have left over from when their dog died.

Other than that... had a visit from the guy who used to own this place. He just dropped by to show us where the termites were in the yard and see if everything was going all right, which was nice.

And hello to all the people at my old work. They posted a comment and I replied, but I'm not sure if they'd think to look there. And I just remembered that I have a book on order. Let me know when it comes in please.