For Sale

A lot has happened since last time we spoke.

Kel is now working in Nundah. Sarah, ex director of Sunnybank Hills CC, was looking for a full time group leader and Kel just happened to see the ad. She wasn't really sure if she wanted to go back into a room, and certainly not full time, but went and had an 'interview' anyway. Sarah really likes Kel, so she is now working three days a week and can take Noah and continue breast feeding. Bayli was going to be going two days a week but is going three as well because I have got a job too.

I am picking orders for Chemist Warehouse in Geebung. Start at 6am and finish at 2:15. Nat the most glamorous job but pretty good.

Worst thing for both of us is the drive. Kel takes about an hour to get there, me about 50 mins.

But both of our houses are now on the market. When we sell them (there hasn't been a lot of interest yet) we will be buying some where closer. First preference is Bracken Ridge but we will have to wait and see what the prices are doing, both for the ones we are selling and the one we want to buy.

We are also in the process of trying to find a new car. We have already bought a car off my parents for $800.

Both of the Kids are doing well. Noah slept all the way through one night but has regressed since. He still isn't making a habit of rolling over. Bayli can count to ten.

My parents are in Egypt.

It's all happening.

But now I have to go play cricket.

Update

Deborah is working out at Ayres Rock now and wants the blog to be updated. What about her blog? That's what I want to know.

Anyways...

Not a lot is actually happening here. Noah is doing well. He feeds fairly regularly during the day but at night he gets fed about 9 o'clock, then at about 3am, then at about 7am. It isn't too bad. He's already wearing 000 clothes, which Bayli wasn't wearing until she was three months old. Nan and Pop reckon he'll be crawling any day now-- apparently he pretty much got up on his hands and knees the other day but neither Kel or I witnessed it.

Bayli helped decorate the xmas tree the other day. Then she spent about an hour playing with this book thing that has a 3D scene inside and plays music when you open it. She loves it. She is starting to read now as well. She recognises about half the alphabet most of the time and can tell you a word or two that the letters stand for. She even works some out herself. We normally say window starts with W but the other day, out of the blue, she told us that water also starts with W.

And Bayli also had her first hair cut the other day. She took it pretty well. She was a bit unsure at first then she was great. She got a certificate.

Kel has been reading my Brighest Light novel. As soon as she finishes I'll be going through it as well and then I'll be sending it to Stephanie Smith at Harper Collins, who currently has the updated version of Singing Other Worlds.

Christmas presents are getting organised. Kel and I lashed out last week and spent $5 on a little TV cabinet type thing that we are going to turn into a kitchen for Bayli. She also has lots of kitchen stuff to go with it. We'll post pictures when it's finished.

And, most important of all... I scored 31 runs in cricket yesterday. 31 may not sound like a lot, but for me it is.

Finally

It is finally done.

At about 5am today, Noah Robinson decided to make an appearance. He weighed 9 pounds 7 ounces apparently, which is about 4.5kg' apparently. I really don't care about those sort of details. He has all the bits he's supposed to have and is in good health as far as everyone knows. Kel is in pretty good health as well. There were complications, again, but they've been sorted and everything should be fine.

Kel has already had two more visitors in hospital than she did with Bayli, which demonstrates one of the reasons we are moving back to Brisbane.

All the grand parents have been there, of course, but an Aunt and Uncle came up from Ipswich.

That all for now. I need sleep.

The Waiting Game

Well, I'm officially due to have the baby today...and don't feel anywhere close to going into labour. I'm considering heading down to the hospital anyway. Surely if I explain that they told me I'm due today they'll arrange everything accordingly?

In all seriousness though, at my appointment this week they've told me that if I'm still going for my appt. next week they'll book me in for an induction on Mon 2nd Nov at the latest. That feels like a really long way away. After having Bayli three weeks early I already feel overdue!

So I guess it's out of my hands, it's either up to the baby or the doctors. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Life is traveling much the same in other areas. Living in the shed is still cosy and going pretty good. Did Scott mention the fabulous 'window' he made us? It's basically a frame that we've screwed in front of one of the garage doors. The top half is covered in shadecloth which lets in all the air and light without all the flies and mozzies, and the bottom has some colourbond type sheeting covering it. We just open it by raising the garage door from the inside. Did I mention that it's FABULOUS? We don't need the lights on during the day now, and it's much cooler too. My husband is a good man.

Bayli is great too, of course. Scott dressed her this morning and she headed straight outside. 15 secs later she comes back in saying 'Hat. Hat.' and went to get her hat before going back out again. 15 secs after that she came back in saying 'Sun-cream. Sun-cream.' So we put her suncream on and out she went again. 5 mins later she came in saying 'Nappy. Nappy. Poo-wee.' And yes, it did smell an awfull lot like her description. What made it even cuter is that Scott was the one who changed her.

That reminds me of some other exciting news. (That's a bit of a worry isn't it?) Bayli did her first wee on the toilet last weekend!! She's been asking to sit on the toilet for a couple of weeks now so we started sitting her on it at bath time, when we change her nappy etc (we haven't been full on toilet training because I'm so close to having the baby). So on Sunday we took her down for a bath and sat her on the toilet and she peed! Very exciting. She hasn't done another one yet, but that's okay, you've got to start somewhere.

Scott has just sent the restructured version of his troll novel (minus the troll) to a publisher who's seen the old version. So fingers crossed. He's nearly finished working on his Skylands novel and the same publisher has said that she'd like to see that one too.

I can't think of anything else newsworthy for now so I'll sign off.

Hopefully we'll have some more exciting news anyday now...

All's Well

Bayli has been going to day care for a few weeks now, two days a week. When we get there in the mornings she generally rushes up to the door, but just as she steps through she realises that we'll be leaving her there on her own. So then she starts to cry or clings to someones leg. She isn't all that happy when we leave, but apparently does pretty good during the day. The first few times we picked her up before nap time. Then we waited until after she'd woken up and she was lying in bed saying, "Mummy, daddy, mummy, daddy..." and started crying when we arrived. Last time she was eating afternoon tea though and smiled. Soon we'll be dragging her away.

She is now officially a big girl in a big girl's bed at home. When she's tired she says, "Sleepy," and goes in and climbs on the bed. And a couple of times she's climbed back out and knocked on the door (which is very cute). And once she fell out as well-- there was screaming and blood from a split lip. Books are still one of her favourite things and now Kel and I can actually stay on one page long enough to read the words. It's very exciting.

Bayli still loves going for walks around the yard at home and is always asking to go on the swing. And she can repeat just about any word she hears, which is great until someone swears. She also loves knocking on doors. All we need to do now is get her to say who it is when someone says, "Who's there."

I still haven't found work. Had a few interviews. Got to the final five with one job and may have another but it all seems very dodgy. (Unroadworthy motorbike for delivering mail, among other things.)

Unfortunately I haven't been using my spare time to do writing as often as I should. I've been doing a bit on The Brighest Light but not a lot. Would like to get it done by mid october to enter it in a competition but I don't like the odds.

I've signed up to play cricket with Stafford again. I checked out the local Woodford team but it was going to cost more money to play on concrete pitches. It'll be a fifty minute drive to home games at Stafford but I can get a lift with Ash (about half an hour away) if I want. It should all be fine. First game is this coming Sunday. That will be interesting.

Kel and I had our second anniversary last month and my parents and sister treated us to a night on Bribie Island (and looked after Bayli while we were gone). We had a cabin ovorlooking the water and a picnic hamper and Kel's parents paid for dinner and the petrol to get there. So thank you very much to everyone involved there. Especially Kel. It was great-- very relaxing and just what we need with another baby arriving shortly.

Speaking of which... Kel is doing well. She is doing lots of card making and is generally pretty busy with that and running around after Bayli. This pregnancy seems to be effecting her much less than the last one. Still no sign of the IC or the low blood pressure, which is great. There's only six weeks to go so it is all starting to get very real. Again. We've done a tour of the maternity ward at Caboolture hospital and it seems much better than Kingaroy. There will be two midwives with us this time, so they can read New Idea and Womans Day in shifts. It'll be great.

We have a double pram already, the trouble is, it takes up about 7/8ths of the boot. When we put a second baby seat in the back seat there won't be a lot of room for other stuff, like luggage or shopping or dogs or cricket gear, or whatever. We've been looking at buying something bigger than a Pulsar but can't really afford it at the moment.

Thats all for now.

Kel here.

Apparently I'm way overdue to add something to the blog, so here I am.

Well, we've settled very nicely into what Scott calls the "Bungalow". I refer to it as the "Cottage" so keep that in mind as you continue reading or things may start to get very confusing. It's actually working really well. In fact Scott's folks may be very thankful that there's no running water in the kitchen and the middle of the night (pregnant) toilet breaks are a pain in the butt, otherwise we might've decided to settle in permanently. Although I won't be pregnant forever... but that may just lead to a whole new set of inconveniences.

We've all had colds this last week. It started with Bayli, who seems to have escaped with the mildest dose, but didn't take long for me, Scott and Nan to succum. Scott's mum and I have had it the worst, every time we think we've kicked it, BANG, back it comes full-force again. I seem to be improving again today so hopefully I'm finally seeing the last of it.

I took Bayli to Playgroup Thursday week ago. Hmm... where to start? I don't think we'll be going back in a hurry. There was HEAPS of equipment but everything seemed really dirty. Morning tea wasn't too bad until I realised that the bowl of biscuits that the kids had been generously helping themselves to (and parents had been returning handfuls to the bowl deemed too excessive) were tipped into a container ready to be brought out again for the next group of children. And don't even get me started on the art experience, I'm getting worked up just remembering.

Fortunately I've found a lovely alternative. On Friday mornings the Caboolture Shire Community Somethingorother holds a Community Cuppa at the Library in Woodford. The kids have morning tea provided and then play in the library and then they have storey time etc. Much nicer. The other parents seem very friendly and there's a child health nurse there too if you want to check anything with them. The same group have also started their own playgroup in their building next to the Library. This is held on Tuesdays and is apparently very clean and free (the other playgroup made you pay $3 plus bring a plate of food to share) so we will be checking this out too.

That's really all the exciting (?) happenings from the Cottage lately. Bayli will be graduating to a single bed in the next couple of weeks which I'm sure will make life interesting for us. We'll let you know the results.

Chapter 3: The Bungalow

So, apparently it's been too long between posts. And it isn't as if nothing has happened.

We are now living in my parent's garage-- or as we like to call it, the bungalow. (well, not really, but anyway.)

The move was absolutely horrible. The were a thousand trailer loads of stuff, and there would have been one more if not for the deal we struck with our new tenants. The guy who took over my job at Storey wanted the house but couldn't get out of his old lease. So we said we would let them start renting on the 8th of this month if we could leave some stuff behind and skip the last bit of the cleaning. Thank god the agreed. We didn't get back to the bungalow until about 9pm (after leaving there at 7am). If we'd had to do the rest... And realistically it cost us a weeks rent at most.

Living in the Bungalow actually isn't all that bad. It's basically a triple garage, which is plenty of room for the three of us. When number 4 arrives in a couple of months (oh my god, is it that close?) it will get interesting. Both Bayli and Pip love it here. They both love wandering around the yard (together, quite often), and are always wandering in and out. I'm not sure which of them has the most energy, though Pip is quicker, just. Pop made a sand pit about two days after we moved in.

It took a while to get the TV going, and longer for the internet. The xbox was pretty quick. And we are slowly whittling down the boxes in my parent's other shed.

No work for me yet, though I have applied for heaps.

So, the Nanango chapter is finished. And we move on.