Her room

When we bought the house the room we always planned on being a nursery looked rather….bright:

Bright yellow and green. What was that dotty old lady on? We originally planned to paint that room immediately – until we found out how much paint costs. So it sat until this year. It was one of the happiest days of my life when we finished painting. lso possibly the tiredest but it was worth it. You can’t see it in the photos (typical) but the paint colour is a beautiful light meringue colour – a little hint of pink, a hint of brown, a hint of white. It all depends on the light and time of day. It was an even happier day when I got to hang new (non-musty!) curtains and put the baby furniture in. Suddenly our house had a nursery in it. Oooooh!

Her wooden cradle to the left of the door with some little shelves:

The cradle up close packed with special toys waiting for her and a sunpaint receiving blanket I bought off Etsy for her. Of all the things I wanted for her a rocking cradle and really super expensive but lovely woolen bassinet mattress were it – and yes, the mattress is currently wrapped in a black rubbish bag for protection:

The shelves filled with treasures I have made, bought and been gifted while I waited for her to exist. Swaddling wraps, blankets, booties, bibs, towels, muslin cloths. Basically you could call it the “how the hell does a tiny lump need so much stuff and where the hell do I put it all?” corner:

The fresh new curtains (they match the ones in our bedroom and I cannot tell you how fancy it feels to have two things in the whole house that match) and the toys. The (nasty, ratty, squished and probbly not safe to touch) purple elephant was my first toy 33 years ago and I made the bunny in high school home ec when I was 14:

The toy shelves. I love that everything has a story – the little music box by the rainbow was passed on from my gran, the wooden rattle at the back of the middle shelf was the first thing I ever bought with my future baby in mind 5 years ago, the little squeaky policeman is because I had one like it as a baby (my dad was a policeman), the books and blocks were carefully hunted out just for the child I wanted to have:

The dresser with changing mat and boomonster (to chase away the bad monsters) with a nappy bag at the ready. The dresser is my most bittersweet gift to my daughter – it was made for me 33yrs ago by my late grandfather. To have something her great grandfather made is a special gift:

The room I wished so hard for – our daughters room, in our own house, done just the way I wanted it. A nursing chair will eventually go in the corner and my dad gave me a lazyboy which would be comfy but I am terrified of ruining the paint (it took 2 weekends at 24 weeks pregnant, you’d treat it with kid gloves too!) so I am saving for a nice one that doesn’t rock anywhere near my precious paintjob:

There’s a few rainbow touches around the room and I ordered some decals for the wall. There will also eventually be waldorf window stars on the windows. I wanted a rainbow theme but not too tasky or in your face. I struggled for a while with the reality of having champagne tastes on a beer juice mineral water tap water budget but in the end even the 40 year old carpet doesn’t bother me. It’s all so….us. This room is us and her and exactly what our family is – ever changing, DIY, toys saved for years, things passed down with love and care for money. In the end this room is exactly what I want for my daughter – love and home and comfort.

Uphill

It’s been hard work maintaining my composure lately. 4 teenage boys hit me and nearly mugged me for my bag in broad daylight. Thank god someone pulled out of their driveway next to where they had me surrounded. The hormone pills have me feeling like a 90-year-old nana who needs a nap to recover from her hard afternoon of doing nothing. My scan and blood test is tomorrow then the next day I start pessaries which caused all sorts of random pains last time. If last time had worked I would be 13 weeks pregnant today.Why yes, I am an optomist. You should hear me when I’m in a bad mood.

But…the fence was finished on Friday and I am still trying to wrap my head around how something so simple…a fence…can change a person’s life. It’s tall, we have complete privacy in our own backyard and the top is nice and sharp (I sliced my wrist when I slipped so I have proof!). I feel safer in my own home and I can’t wait to have a little one running around the backyard with no chance of prying eyes.

De-fence-less

Our second cycle has begun! Yes! I am 8 days in and have an embryo transfer scheduled for mid May – dependant on the outcome of the scn and blood test. Only one blood test! Pills, not needles! Lots and lots of pills but still…no needles. I’m getting lovely throbby headaches but they are really a piece of cake compared to an egg growing cycle. It’s all good. But you know whats not good for IVF success? Stress. Stress like fence vandals who think it’s funny to do this:

We’ve got padlocks and extra locks on our property but then they go and remind us we have a 20 year old piece of crap fence with rotten paling that are too far apart and not high enough. Ever since I realised how exposed our property is I have lived in a state of constant…stress/fear/worry/hyper ninja alertness. It takes its toll!

Nothing like making you feel vulnerable. Winter is so close now, the rain has arrived this week in fact. But rather than wait for late Spring when the ground dries (our clay soil turns to a bog in winter) for a new fence like we had hoped to we suddenly decided that it was clearly time. Now. ASAP. After a trip to the bank the builders started yesterday by demolishing the old fence.

Bye you piece of crap fence! No more vandal friendly palings to kick in. But until we get that lovely tall coloursteel fence up tomorrow we are 1 night into our 2 nights of being completely fence free. This is not an area where that is a recommended lifestyle choice. Sleep was not an option last night. But tomorrow we should have a lovely and taller green steel fence that hides our washing line (the old people who lived here before us basically had their undies on display for 20 years!), prevents access to the property SO much better, hides any kids toys that might one day end up scattered around the lawn and means that we can finally have a back yard that is not on total display.

It’s all on the list of things to do to prepare for a child one day soon! The only big thing on the list after the fence is…strip and paint the nursery! I have the colour chosen, the only problem is which shade? There’s like 20. I think I need a trip to the bakery.

Winter Wonderland

New Zealand has been hit by a freak snowstorm and parts of the country that don’t get snow are getting snow. Serious snow. Not Minnesota snow but yeah, enough to cause a mass flurry of cameras snapping and kids woohooing. It’s my first time to see snow and it’s very pretty to watch it falling. It is NOT however even remotely nice to walk in when you are not well equipped. Lesson LEARNT. We’ve also had thunder and lightening directly over us, a cat that would not come out from under the house (hence most of the wet foorwear and two power outages yesterday night. Maybe more tonight. Thank goodness for our earthquake kit. It’s pretty spartan but the candles got us through. As did my fetish for thrifting blankets just in case. I told Dave they’d be useful….

Planning

I. Hate. Winter. Loathe it. I get Seasonal affective disorder in the worst way. So I’m trying really hard to keep busy when I’m not wallowing in pits of misery. I’m drawing up plans for our very first garden to be planted the second spring arrives, stripping the kitchen cupboards with a heat gun (so fun!) ready for repainting the second spring arrives (finally that pink really IS going!), cutting out toys with the scroll saw, preparing to strip the wallpaper in the future nursery – which currently looks like this:

I’m actually starting to get giddy – the pink is going from the kitchen cupboards and that bloody dayglow painted wallpaper is next! We’re going to have a garden! Me growing things! Me trying to grow things! I’ve spent a lot of time lately feeling really lazy but actually I see now that I’m planning. That lying in front of the heater is actually very important work. Well thats my argument and I’m sticking to it.

Words aren’t enough

Most of you have heard of the enormous earthquake that struck Christchurch, here in New Zealand. They were just recovering from one that hit them in September and the damage to already weakened buildings has been catastrophic. The news footage is like something you’d see in Haiti or on September 11th, not New Zealand. Many people, us included, have family down there and they are fine thankfully. It made me hug Dave and the furbabies a little tighter yesterday. The death toll is climbing and the stories are heartbreaking.

And then we woke this morning to find our garage had been broken into and burgled. They took a handful of electronic things that make Dave’s life more enjoyable. They rummaged through everything. They’ve absolutely terrified me. Burglary is my number one terror. And our insurance, which is due in a few weeks and we’ll struggle to pay anyway, will now most likely go up. Plus they stole one of my gardening gloves. I mean really, disk drives and an mp3 player weren’t enough? Bastards. Just…bastards. How am I going to prune the fuchsia bushes now?

My joy

This is NOT my joy. This is burnt baking. Burnt acrid smelling cookies spread out into one giant solid cookie. Lucky for me I doubled the recipe cos I was babysitting and I didn’t fancy having to tell a 5 year old that Steph burnt the cookies and we had no more butter. He was so adamant that we had to bake something to eat this time – the salt dough ornaments were a little confusing to him in December – baking that you can’t eat? Why?

This is also definitely not my joy – yet. My first try at knitting in the round. My second attempt really. The first try, despite my careful efforts, got twisted and I had to redo the cast on row. This attempt has an untwisted cast on row and looser stitches so here’s hoping. I’m looking forward to many projects in the round, sitting and rocking on the lazyboy. That lazyboy is my joy. I should rename it a lazygirl.

The thing that is my joy? Today it was all the moments that I couldn’t photograph because I was too busy living them. We bought a $2 ball from a discount store to keep at my house when Ashton comes again next week and today he and I spent 10 minutes chasing and kicking and throwing and screaming in the back yard. I got too puffed (asthma) after that but it was so fun. We bought the house because we saw that backyard and I immediately imagined kids running around in it. And today one did. And thanks to my big weight loss (21.3kg!) I could run around with him. And on our way home from the shops today with the ball we bought ‘smiley faces’ from the bakery and sat on a park bench at the ‘trick ramps’ (skate park) and ate them together. Oh there were hard bits today too – oh my GOD there was hard bits. He fell off his scooter. Twice. And his bike. Twice. There was a bloody nose and a stubbed heel. And tears – loud, loud tears. And sulking. And every day as soon as he leaves I promptly eat something really fattening and flop onto the couch. Yesterday on my day off I slept right through until 11am. But the good bits? They were great. I only have 400 grams left to lose before the doctor will refer me for fertility treatment (ONLY 400 GRAMS TO GO!!!!) – that’s if all my stress eating this week is balanced out by the outrageous amounts of exercise I am wracking up chasing after him! And it was such a boost to see what it’s like. Not in a childcare centre, not with someone helping me but just ‘us’. Me and a kid doing our thing. Yelling hello to the mail lady and the constant ‘will you buy me this?’ (‘no, I’m not your mother!’ I’ll miss that excuse when I am the mother of the kid asking me that!) and the threats of Time Out and the cuddles and going to the grocery store and baking and just being a parenty type. I want it. I’m so close. 400 grams more to lose, a 10 month waiting list then finally the stirrups and injections and just maybe a baby. So close.

(My ability to gloss over the hard parts of the day may also be related to the fact I got paid for the weeks work today and his mum slipped me 10% extra. Money will sway me every time.)

Looking back and looking forward

I had a feeling that I had finished nothing in 2010 – I certainly felt like I started a lot of things and finished none. As usual my fears were totally unjustified – I finished many things and some of them were actually pretty good too:

I starting writing a 2011 Goals list but it got longer and longer and frankly began to alarm me – so many things I could fail at! Rather than list every single thing to achieve this year I’ve picked 5 things that I’d like to do this year – I can do them at any stage during the year or not at all. They are all things I can start, stop and start again at any time. No pressure!

1. Save money – I’m starting with my spare change because that’s about all my budget will cope with right now and if that works then the odd banknote might get saved too. Or not. Any money saved is better than no money saved.
2. Start a vegetable garden – I planned that for the current summer but between a lack of money and learning the ways of our microclimate it didn’t happen. Planning for November 2011.
3. Stop drinking soda. I switched from Coke to Coke Zero at the specialists advice to help lose weight but I feel like I’m essentially drinking poison. If I’m going to have a bun in my oven one day I’d like the oven to be fairly clean and in good working order.
4. Implement the Flylady system to clean the house. I don’t have kids yet, how can two adults make a house so messy?
5. Sell online. That’ll help #1.

There’s no pressure on me to do them – if I do them before the end of the year then yay for me but if I don’t then my life won’t have changed so it won’t be a loss to me. The crafty part of the ‘to do’ list remains however and it’s daunting to look at. I’ll share it next time but right now I have a pixie hat to dye.

Salt dough ornaments

First things first – last night I officially lost exactly 20 kilos! It took me seven months (and three days) which is pretty damn good. I have 1.7kg to lose by February 4th to get my fertility treatment referral and after a couple of good losses this month I feel relly confident that I can totally do it! It means I can’t gain a gram over Christmas (gulp!) if I want to brag that I lost 20kg in 2010 but I love a challenge.

So…salt dough ornaments. I never made these before, not even as a child so I really didn’t know about them but they saved my sanity this week. That boy does not switch off. Ever. We baked them yesterday using this recipe and other than the hanging holes shrinking a little during baking them came out perfectly. Some were thick and some thin but they all cooked evenly. It’s a brilliant kids craft and really quick to throw together. Three ingredients and there’s a rolling pin to keep the kiddo excited. Today we painted them in PVA glue and sprinkled them with glitter. It was either that or paint….no contest! The glitter came in little shaker top bottles (which I highly recommend for younger kids!) from the $2 shop and the PVA was from my craft room. He really enjoyed picking which colours to sprinkle on each ornament. I carved his inital and the year in a couple of the ornaments in the hope they may be used on his family tree every year. I threaded them all with string (Dave took him outside while I did it – I love that man!) and he took them home in a box. I feel like it was a good 3 days when he was able to take a finished project home with him. Even if my cat will have sparkly poop this week. Festive!

How to entertain a child: act like one.

Day 2

Day 2 of babysitting is over. We baked salt dough ornaments, thank you to everyone who suggested things to do. He didn’t quite understand why we were baking something we couldn’t eat (I totally get that) but I think I have him excited now about painting the ornaments tomorrow with…..(God help me) glitter. Oi. Oioioi. I’ve also rented 3 kids movies to get us through tomorrow and then on Thursday or Friday I hope to take my hard earned money to the yarn shop. I’ve earned it.

This is Duckie and Duckies toy:

I looooved watching him feed Duckie his bottle (a bottle of roll on sunscreen!) and rock the lazyboy while he fed him. One of those “I want to remember this forever” moments.

This is what frazzled (and frizzy and rained on) looks like:

This is what the aftermath of Category 5(years old) Hurricane Ashton looks like:

I’ve earned it I tell ya.