Friday, June 25

Our New Friends...


A Few Friends...


The big girl has been a bit neglected here on the blog lately, so I thought I would share her latest obsession... a short 5 min cartoon shown on ABC2 called "Pororo the Little Penguin"... it's a Korean based cartoon, translated to English, and Elizabeth just adores it... so much that Daddy decided to hunt down some soft toys on eBay for her and scored 4 out 5 of the characters for the bargain price of $10 each including shipping! (We had to pay more for Pororo the main character). Phan bought Pororo and Loopy (the pink beaver character) first and then ordered the other 3 characters later. He had told her Elizabeth that Crong (the green dinosaur character) was coming to visit, so for the last 2 weeks Elizabeth has been waiting for him to arrive... telling us often "Crong is coming to visit..." and everytime she saw a plane in the sky she would say "Crong is on that plane..." ... LOL...

So Crong (and his friends Pobe and Eddy) arrived this week and Elizabeth was very excited and happy with her new friends... so much that she was trying to carry them around everywhere with her... as evidenced in this photo...

Nah nah nah nah nah...


Nah nah nah nah nah...


5 weeks old today and she's developing personality...

Thursday, June 24

A Cheeky Little Smile...


Cheeky Little Smile


Catherine doesn't intentionally smile yet, but we're getting a little sneak peek of what it's going to be like when she gets a bout of wind (which is quite often at the moment and has also been the cause of some rather unsettled nights lately)... It's going to be so cute when she starts smiling at us...

Tuesday, June 22

Sisterly Cuddles


Sisterly Cuddles


This is one of those fuzzy Mummy moments... *sigh*...

Monday, June 21

One Month Today


Almost 1 month..


My goodness! Where has the last month gone?! Catherine is one month and she is already so different from the itty bitty newborn we brought home 4 weeks ago... It's strange how before she arrived, I had trouble imagining what life would be like with another child in the family ... I worried about going back to the newborn phase, the sleep deprivation... I worried about how Elizabeth would handle having a sister... I worried about dividing my attention between two children and felt guilty that Elizabeth would no longer be the center of our world... I wondered if I could love another child as much as I love my first born.... Ah, motherhood... it's full of worries... but the worries are balanced out with things that make it all worthwhile... the joy of bringing a new life into the world - enjoying all the cute little newborn things that I'd forgotten... the funny noises, the cute cries, the unintentional smiles when they are full of wind.... then watching Elizabeth realise and understand that babies are not that scary after all and can be fun... And I discovered that as much as I loved Elizabeth with my whole heart, I found that my heart just made more room so that I could love Catherine equally as much as Elizabeth...

Now that Catherine's here, it just feels so natural and I can't imagine life without her...

Thursday, June 17

Groceries

I took the big girl to kindy today (drama-free again... :) I'm happy about that!) And then I had to go pick-up some registered mail at the post office (Catherine's birth certificate) and while I was there I decided to attempt a quick grocery shop. I am one of these weirdos that actually loves grocery shopping... I think I get it from my mum... I always have a very well (ok, probably overfilled) pantry... it's like I'm stocking up for the apocalyse... I'm sure we could survive on what's in the cupboard for at least a month! Anyway I haven't been grocery shopping since I had Catherine... which is basically a month and I've really missed it... so it was nice to peruse (even if I had to do it quickly!) the aisles... The other cool thing is that Phan and I have started using this awesome phone app called OurGroceries... Phan and I have this system where I will update the list online (or via my iphone) and if I need him to pick up some groceries on the way home from work, I let him know and he just refers to the list on his phone (and it will sync his phone with the online list) and then he just does the shopping... *AWESOME*! Other nifty features - you can tick off the items on your phone as you buy them... it's compatible with both iPhone and Android phones, you can setup multiple shopping lists (I have one setup for the asian grocery, woolworths & non-grocery items). You can even setup recipes with lists of ingredients and add the recipe to your shopping list and all the ingredients in the recipe get added. Really, you gotta try this app if you a compatible phone... It's very nifty... and no more ever forgetting your shopping list (unless you forget your phone!)... Oh and did I mention... the app is FREE! It can't get much better than this... (yes, I know, I'm sounding rather crazy raving about this app, but I really like how functional it is!)

Anyway, the baby girl was very well behaved... she slept the whole shopping trip (she stirred a couple of times, but the motion of the trolley moving, put her back to sleep)... in fact she's only just stirring now... and it's coming onto 5 hours between feeds for her (which is pretty long, she normally does 3-4 hour feeds... but she was awake for a long time this morning from 2am-3:30am... so she's probably catching up on sleep...

I'm going to spend the rest of my day catching up on some rest and pottering around the house a little...

And just so this post isn't naked, here's another shot of the little one...


Hello World

Tuesday, June 15

Sisters


Sisters


Oh, it's soooo nice to see how much Elizabeth loves Catherine... she asks to hold her now and gives her spontaneous kisses (Catherine gets more kisses than me and Phan these days!)... And her latest thing, is she likes to give Catherine a massage after a bath... She's such a lovely big sister. I can also see that Catherine is going to adore her big sister... she looks at Elizabeth a lot and you can just see her watching and taking in everything Elizabeth is doing...

I am so lucky to have these two wonderful girls in my life...

Sunday, June 13

C'mon You Socceroos!!!


C'mon You Socceroos!


Well, I won't be up watching the game (I value my sleep way too much!), but Phan and Catherine will be... so I'll just be there in spirit.... C'mon you Socceroos!

And here are some shots of our clan all dressed up in our supporter gear...


Socceroo Family Shot

Daddy and the Girls

Fun & Games Is What It's All About

Totally oblivious to the fuss...

Quotable Quotes

Sometime last week Elizabeth was playing on her slide and she asked me to play on it too... here was our conversation...

Elizabeth - "Mummy, can you go down the slide?"
Me - "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm too big for the slide... you don't want me to break it."
Elizabeth - "How about Catherine go down the slide?"
Me - "Oh, I'm sorry, but Catherine is too small to go down the slide... I'm too big and Catherine is too small... but you know what... one day Catherine is going to grow up to be bigger and then she'll be able to play on the slide with you... and that will be fun won't it?"
Elizabeth - "Oh, yes."

Then a few days later, the following conversation takes place..

Elizabeth - "Mummy... Catherine is looking bigger today."
Me - "Yes, she is getting bigger isn't she?"
Elizabeth - "Can she play on the slide with me?"

LOL... cuteness!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elizabeth and I are playing a pretend cafe game...

Elizabeth - "I am sitting at the cafe and I need some food."
Me - "What kind of food would you like today?"
Elizabeth - "I need to taste food like the *jugglers*"
Me - "Jugglers? What are jugglers?"
Elizabeth - "The Jugglers"
Phan - "Oh... the judges!"
Me - "The judges? Oh like on Masterchef?"
Elizabeth - "Yes."

Hmmm... someone has been paying attention to Mummy's favourite show at the moment!

Friday, June 11

The Poo-ing Face


The Poo-ing Face


This is the facial expression that Catherine always does when she's poo-ing. It's such a funny expression... (And yes, I'm well aware that when Catherine is older she is probably going to go "Muuuuum... why are you posting photos of me doing that?!?!" ) It's so recognizable that Elizabeth noticed it tonight too... Catherine was in her bassinette half awake and Elizabeth was standing next to it watching her and then she calls out to me, "Mummy! Catherine is doing the poo-ing face... see? Mummy... come see!"... LOL... so very amusing!

It's quite weird to think that Catherine's due date was actually yesterday... but she's already been a part of our lives for 3 weeks! How fast has that gone?! She's already beginning to look quite different... I must take some more photos... was planning to take photos today, but I was still not feeling that great with that slight flu thing I have... plus severely sleep deprived after a rough night, so I spent the day resting...

On a separate note... the World Cup starts tonight... and Phan's planning to watch the Uruguay vs France game at 4:30am... uh huh... madness... so I'm on first shift tonight with Catherine (which is why I'm sitting here blogging) and Phan will be taking over when he is awake watching the game...

Thursday, June 10

Some more adorable-ness... *sigh*


*sigh*


I love a sleeping baby...

I started feeling slightly under the weather yesterday... head-achey, and I had that flu-like achiness in my legs which made them a bit shakey... Some panadol had me feeling better and I went to bed early and expected Phan to wake me around 1-2am, but he ended up giving Catherine 2 feeds with expressed breastmilk and looking after her until 5am (he is so wonderful!), so I got a really great sleep and the extra rest made me feel so much better... I actually woke up just before 5am and had to go and express some milk because I felt like I was going to explode since it had been 7 hours between feeds for me! I gave Catherine a feed, and then she half dozed in and out of sleep and then at 6:30am, Elizabeth woke up and came in for a cuddle with me for half an hour before we got up and started out day.

Today Elizabeth went to kindy happily for the first time in a few weeks... With all the adjustments to being a big sister it was understandable... but today, she was quite amicable to the idea of going to kindy (she didn't once say "I don't want to go to kindy", which has been somewhat of a catch-cry on kindy mornings for the last couple of months)... and she even agreeably wore a cardigan... Elizabeth has been quite opposed to the idea of wearing warm clothing with the weather becoming cooler... It's been a struggle to get her to wear pants, long sleeves, jumpers or cardigans... She always wants to wear dresses... so we've been compromising lately by wearing dresses with long sleeved tops and leggings underneath... so a cardigan is a huge step! When I was getting ready to leave her at kindy, Elizabeth came over and gave me a hug and then said "And after afternoon tea, Mummy and Catherine will come and pick me up!"... I love that she includes Catherine in everything now...

After I dropped Elizabeth off, I went and took Catherine to be weighed... so last time she weighed in at 3.07kg... and today, 10 days later she's now 3.51kg, so I'm very pleased with her progress... I'm bare-weighing her too (as in no clothes or nappy, which Catherine is not too thrilled about!) I remember Elizabeth putting on weight really rapidly too in the early days...

Tuesday, June 8

The Perfect Little Bed


The Perfect Little Bed


The perfect little bed for a perfect little lady... :)

Our family of four has really settled in now... Things are so much more relaxed with the second child... Probably because we kind of know what to expect since we've been through it once before... I'm finding it much easier to deal with sleep deprivation, which I didn't expect (I'm probably averaging between 5-6 hours of broken sleep within a 24 hour period... which with Beth, I found quite hard to cope on, but this time around, I'm finding it quite manageable, as long as I manage to grab at least a 30 minute nap in the afternoon). Phan and I have a bit of a tag team system going on where I go to bed around 10-11pm (or whenever Catherine's last feed is) and he stays up with her or sleeps in her room with her until about 1-2am. Mostly she sleeps, but Phan resettles her if she wakes, so that I can get a 2-3 hour block of sleep. He sometimes gives her a bottle of expressed breastmilk and then wakes me and I take over from there until morning and he gets a 4 hour block of sleep... and I tend to get anywhere from 1-3 hours of broken sleep from then until about 7-7:30am... which is generally when Beth decides to wake up. For some reason, Catherine sleeps really well during the day (often in blocks of a couple of hours), but at night she tends to wake up every hour or so... and sometimes she just wakes up and wants to play... which would be a lot cuter if it wasn't some crazy hour of 3am! Hopefully she will figure out the difference between night and day in the not too distant future...

Today, I took Elizabeth and Catherine to Playtime... it was great to get out of the house and not too hard going out by myself with 2 kids... It helped that I had some wonderful friends who were happy to help occupy Elizabeth with drawing and craft when I was busy... I also put Catherine in my new ERGObaby carrier which I use with the Heart2Heart insert... I love this carrier.. really comfy, easy to use, and Catherine loves being carried in it... She basically slept her way through the entire 2 hours of the Playtime session... I was determined to get a decent carrier this time around... I'd bought a Baby Bjorn with Beth and she hated the thing and as a result I only used it maybe twice and never looked at it again! The other great thing about this carrier is that you can wear it on your front, on your hip and on your back... so versatile!

Elizabeth really enjoyed herself at playtime since we'd missed the last couple of sessions... She made a superhero puppet which she thinks is pretty cool... and we had lots of people oohing and aahing over Catherine... something about itty bitty newborns brings out the cluckiness in everybody.. :)...

Some random thoughts about being a mum the second time around -

I'd forgotten the funny, cute, quirkly little noises and facials that newborns do... Even their crying is cute at this age... it's not annoying, just such a cute small cry... and I can even see the funny side of hysterical crying (which has only happened a couple of times in the car on the way home, when she's due for a feed)... it's sad and amusing at the same time, because it's such a little cry. Really, it's so nice rediscovering how adorable this little phase is... trying to enjoy it because I know it's going to pass fast!

I am producing an abundance of milk ... with Beth I had a really slow supply getting started, but I had a decent supply and never had any real issues with leaking... but with Catherine... my goodness, I am making WAY too much milk... I am leaking, leaking, leaking! (Sorry if too much info!)

Catherine is a little bit reflux-y... nothing major, but going from Beth who was the most non-refluxy baby ever (she probably posseted less than 10 times in her entire life!), it's a bit of an adjustment having a normal baby that does posset... we just get little milky possets after most feeds... I just try and hold her upright after her feeds and I'm feeding her smaller amounts so she doesn't spew it all up!

It is amazing the amount of extra laundry a little person can generate! Seriously, I don't know where it all comes from... I've gone to doing laundry 3 times a week to now doing laundry almost every day!

Catherine enjoys baths... much like her sister... I think we have another little water baby on our hands...

Elizabeth is loving to share stuff with Catherine... I've caught her a few times just sitting next to Catherine in the bouncer and talking to her and holding her hand or showing her a toy... it's really so sweet to see. And if we go somewhere, she reminds me that we have to take Catherine with us (just in case I'm going to forget!)

Thursday, June 3

And just a few more...

(for those of you not on facebook, just a couple more photos from the shoot the other day)...


The Sleeping Hat

Thoughtful Sleepiness

More Sleeping Sweetness