Grunting

I wasn't a quiet pregnant woman.

The combination of my belly measuring ahead and the way I ate everything I could see until I got my GD diagnosis meant I was lugging a few extra kgs around, so a totally audible getting up/down/around noise seemed appropriate.

It seems The Bubby has clued on to this - even if I hold her perfectly still and don't change my hold on her in any way, she always groaaaaaans whenever I stand up or sit down with her in my arms.

That's my girl.

Sleeps

After a few nights of feeds occurring at bang on every three hours (her tendency to latch on and off/fall asleep mid way means feeding usually takes over an hour, leaving me with blocks of sleep less than two hours long) I was really feeling it yesterday.

I had zero patience for the poor service at the arboretum cafe and the fact they had a Coke soft drink gun but wouldn't sell me a Coke because they could only sell what was in bottles in the fridge (wanky organic lemonade).

And The Toddler wouldn't nap because she fell asleep in the car on the way home, and then I had a lovely catchup with friends visiting, and The Toddler finally decided she'd nap at 4, then the baby wanted a feed from 430, then The Toddler was up from 5.

And even though The Husband gave me a sleep in until 930, my eyes were bugging out of my head by 6 and I was showered and in bed before 830pm.

Last night, The Bubby showed she's getting better at feeding and was done each time within 45 minutes (and feeding longer on both sides). And she went for a four hour stretch at one stage so I got a block of sleep around 3 hours long.

I'm rambling, and I should be napping now, but my points are a) even though this time is 'easier' than last time, it's still not 'easy', and b) I hope the baby keeps up this faster turnaround/longer sleep thing.

Nature vs Nurture

Nature vs Nurture - either way it's my fault.

Like my genes have combined to make my children the way they will be, or I've raised them to be the way they will be.

(of course, they may well turn out to be totally awesome, but it's part of being a newish mum to freak that everything will go wrong)

Self imposed

For someone who is pretty much vomit phobic, I seem to spend a lot of time encouraging a little person to vomit on to my shirt or in to a facewasher sitting in my hands...

Baby hair

There was a recent episode of Modern Family where the mum was rubbing her newborn baby half brother all over her shirt because the newborn baby smell is intoxicating.

Ha ha, right?

But there is nothing, NOTHING, like the feel of your newborn baby's short and soft spikey black hair on your cheeks, nose and eyelashes as she lays cuddled in to your chest.

Bless you

I just can't stop myself from saying 'bless you' when The Bubby sneezes.

It's like I'm worried she'll think I'm rude if I don't.

Even though she doesn't even have the brain capacity to stop her eyes crossing over in the 90 minutes in every 24 hours where her eyes are even open....

On the future

I was skimming through the articles on one of the many 'mommy blogs' that I have in my RSS feed, and came across a story of a 7 year old girl who decided to start fundraising for cancer the day after her moth died of breast cancer.

It stopped me.

7 years old and her mother died.

In five years time, that could be me and The Toddler.

Or, even now, if I were to die, I would leave two daughters with no mother.

It's like I spent all pregnancy thinking about and hoping that my babies would arrive safely. And then, I seem to skip straight through to them being teenagers.

Even on the odd occasion I've thought about what would happen if something happened to The Husband or I, I've never considered the impact on our daughters.

Obviously, I know it is a terribly sad event when a parent dies.

But how sad to be the parent that dies, the sadness you carry for yourself and the sadness you carry for the hurt you are causing.

How heartbreaking.