Around here at the moment, there’s a whole lot of this…
Looking at the bassinet in the play room each day, trying to get some sunlight into Harriet to let her know night from day, I think back to two years ago to the same sight with baby Eleanor in that bassinet in the same position…except this room was not full of toys and kid paraphernalia. Oh, how times have changed! And I wonder to myself what it will look like in another two years time? Probably much the same, with a few more grown up toys and two little girls mucking about.
Somehow, with a two week old unsettled newborn and living in a plaster dust building site (more on that later) we weathered a gastro bug. I know. Horrendous. Thankfully Harriet and myself were unscathed, perhaps the super breastmilk has done it’s duty, but Eleanor and Matt were down for the count for awhile. And nobody needs to deal with toddler vomit. Or a very much out of action husband when you’ve been getting no sleep yourself. We survived though.
This big girl has of course grown up overnight, so big (so heavy!) Running amok in her pink gumboots and mummy’s necklace, eating cake, messy hair, don’t care. What a champion…
Going through and editing these photos I found this: 38 weeks pregnant. I never got around to taking my 40 week due date photo I had planned (and didn’t do a 39 week one) as I was so certain I’d go overdue, or at least have the due date to take a photo. Miss Harriet had other ideas, arriving at 1.18am on her due date – quick as a flash!
Whilst I am basically chained to the couch feeding feeding feeding Harriet, or standing rocking rocking rocking Harriet, Eleanor has been pretty much left to her own devices in the snacks department. The amount of containers from the pantry being brought to the couch and stacked next to me…her favourite to trot out is the pasta, insisting she’d like some raw, then realising on first crunch perhaps not. I was sick to my eyeballs with her eating another milk arrowroot biscuit (“Bick-bick? Bick-bick?”) So in a mad rush whilst Harriet was actually asleep one morning I made a batch of these banana oat muffins. Healthy, refined sugar free, used up my very ripe bananas, sweetened by dates, and Eleanor believes them to be ‘cakes’ and has been inhaling them. Whilst pregnant I also made some broccoli cheddar muffins which have been brought out of the freezer, again: ‘cakes’. Sucker!
Speaking of baked goods, the lovely Julia from @cookiesbyjulia on Instagram delighted me in baking up these gorgeous cookies to welcome our peachy girl. What a clever clogs! A perfect cookie baker I am not – these are so perfectly made! Love me an Insta friend, and love me a baked goods gift too, especially in the early breastfeeding days, gimmee aaaalll the baked goods…
I can sense Spring coming around the corner, slowly but surely. Our bulbs are poking out of the earth, the magnolia, crabapple, horse chestnuts and Manchurian pear trees are budding up. I know that when my niece Violet was born in Brisbane in October all of the purple (‘violet’) jacaranda trees were coming into bloom, I wonder if the appearance of my favourite erlicheer jonquils will herald Harriet’s birthday every year too? Or if they’re just early this year? I definitely need to plant loads more of these come Autumn, dig big trenches and pile them in, so I can have cut ones when I fancy. At the moment there’s just pockets here and there in the garden and I sway between cutting them to bring inside or leaving them be.
The veggie patch has been fairly abandoned during the latter stages of my pregnancy and now hazy newborn days (who has time to garden?!) Luckily it’s been fairly dormant anyway, not much going on other than sad strawberries, abundant spinach (always), beetroot very slow growing and broccoli heads forming. Eleanor likes to check in on the broccoli and assures me she will eat it once we cut some out. Huh…I’ll believe that when I see it!
Somebody in this family has a big birthday coming up in a few weeks, a milestone one which I’m thinking needs to be marked with some sort of significant gift. But…what? I’m drawing a blank. Any suggestions other than another bloody power tool are welcome. Aaaand, go!
Got any bulbs poking up in your patch?
Been struck down with gastro? Awful business.
Or feel your child eats their weight in arrowroot biscuits daily?
Reen says
Yes I think my first child lived on arrowroot biscuits when I was dealing with the hazy foggy days of newborn land. No gastro here…yet…but it is going around my son’s primary school. And as for ideas for a bday pressie, I think I bought my hubby a guitar for his 30th, which isn’t any help if your Matt (mine is Matt too) doesn’t play! I like the idea of an Akubra hat top, my Matt gets them for bday pressies too. Or an experience is a good idea, it’s hard to buy for people as they get older because they’ve got what they want or they can buy what they want. Now that we are on one wage, pressies are much more modest!
Jess says
Gift ideas watch (engraved), akubra hat, rmw boots or belt, skydiving ticket? That’s all I’ve got!