So Bright

I am convinced that one of my friends is having a baby girl, and have been stalking Etsy for the cutest little girl things for a newborn, and I rediscovered one of my favourite shops So Bright Designs.

Loving their new goodies.

I am so royally screwed if she has a boy though!!!
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Badges

I want to do a monthly photo of our baby when it is (finally) born, however the idea I have in my head requires a badge per month (something similar to Making It Lovely's Felt Pin). Only I don't know where to buy a badge kit (that isn't $200+) or buy custom made badges (short of buying 12 aged birthday cards and stealing the badges off them!)

Any ideas?

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Spikey Ouch

Whilst out and about recently I spotted a ceramic cactus that I NEEDED (I blame pregnancy hormones). So I brought it with no idea where I was going to put it.

When I got it home I made a discovery: like a real cactus it was spikey! Really spikey!!!

 Blood may have been drawn - it was that spikey.

Which required desperate measures to get it out of the box - someone remind me to buy new oven mitts at some point too - mine are super stained. The gloves worked though.

Lucky it is pretty. It is currently sitting on the side table in the lounge, but I am starting to think it may need to go into the tv unit where it can be observed but not touched. Would you look at those spikes though!

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Petite Lemon

I can't remember how I stumbled across Petite Lemon, but there is more than a few items I am eyeing off currently, from their posters, to growth charts, and finally to their birth announcement cards.

Hmmm, all I need is a baby to make an announcement about! Pin It

The War Has Been Won

Remember the Great Debate of 2011? Not the one over Julia's Flood Levy, or the one about whether the drought was better for the farmers than the floods. The one about a pram. Oh wait, that debate only happened in our house?

Well it was won. 

I am happy to announce that I won the debate and got my Bugaboo Chameleon. There was a bit of a compromise though. See, just prior to Christmas I won a brand new iPhone 4, a phone which I already owned. So I decided to sell the phone on eBay, and use the funds towards getting the pram I really wanted. I then managed to find a 1 year old pram on eBay for a price that was far to good to be true.

So I bided on it, and surprisingly won it. The only downer was that I wasn't a fan of the orange canvas, and the other topping that came with the pram was the sand fleece. Sand on sand was a little blah for me - so I brought the orange fleece. And boy is it bright! I love it!

Now I just need a baby to put in my pram, as pushing a stuffed toy elephant just isn't quite the same ;)
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A Lesson in Paint

You would think that after 6 years I have this painting thing down pat.

Truth is I don't. I walked into Bunnings fresh faced and full of optimism one fateful day all those years back and came out with a tin of Dulux Low Sheen for the walls and Dulux Aqua-Enamel in semi gloss for the trim. I like water based paint because it doesn't smell too bad, and it is easy to clean up. And that was the end of that, I never went elsewhere, there was no need, I was happy with the brand symbolised by the fluffy dog.

It wasn't until we installed our new windows in the bedroom and spare room that I discovered that you can't mix enamel with waterbased paint without priming in between. Doh! Less than 6 months after painting the bedroom window the paint began to peel and look mighty shabby. My step-dad kindly informed me of my mistake, and pointed out that the only way to fix it would be to strip all the paint off the window and start again. Hmph! That tibbit of information would have been handy prior to painting the window.

However, being the lazy sod I am, I was damned if I was going to strip two windows back, so I brought a tin of Dulux Super Enamel and painted the spare room window with that instead.

I have to say, despite it being highly stinky (thank god I was outside and therefore had good ventilation) I liked the results much more than I liked it's water based counter part. It goes on easier, has a nice gloss look to it, and looked just that little bit fancier than normal.

However, there was no saving the bedroom window, so we stripped the paint back with a combination of sanding and the heat gun. A quick coat of undercoat and we were back to the starting point. One thing I hate about enamel paint is that it takes so long before the next coat can be applied. The primer required 48 hours between coats, which meant that it would be the following weekend before I had the time to do the painting.

With all the rain in Victoria, I chose the first weekend that looked like it could be sunny. In fact, it was to be so sunny that I got up and started painting at 8am in the morning as to not get sunburnt. I was greeted with bubbling paint not long after applying it! Seems no-one informed me that you shouldn't use enamel paint in temperatures over 25 degrees!

Now I get to strip the window sill back AGAIN to start again. Oh the joy!

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37 Weeks Pregnant and Finishing Up

This was meant to be a 35 week update, but it kind of got delayed a few times, so lets recap the last few weeks.

me just before my last day of work - sniff.

We elected to do the hospital ante natal classes on two consecutive Saturday mornings. A lot of people have said that they found their hospital classes to be very narrow minded, only explaining the text book cases and pushing of medical intervention, however I didn't find our classes that way at all. I guess it really does depend on your instructor, as ours was lovely and so full of information on all situations. We left feeling a lot more confident that we might just be able to do this whole birth and parenting thing.

Which was rather handy, as at 33 weeks I went into false labour. I woke up one Sunday with contractions that were 5 minutes apart. A quick call to the midwives meant that the husband was making a very quick drive from the farm to home to collect me, and then to the hospital (which is an hour away I might add). My Ob's was contacted and he meet us at the hospital where it was discovered my cervix was firmly clamped shut, but our baby had an elated heartbeat, and my blood pressure was low. There were some firm words spoken to our baby (mainly stay put for a few more weeks) and we spent the day hanging out in a hospital bed with a fetal monitoring device. I elected to go home after dinner when a CGT showed that the babies heartbeat had returned to a normal range over a period of time, and that my blood pressure had gone back to normal. A few days later we found out that it was most likely caused by an internal infection I was carrying and a severe cold I was in the process of getting over.

And to this day our baby has listened and stayed put, except for moving its head right down into my pelvis ready for the big event somewhere around 35-36 weeks. This meant that I have finally been able to breathe properly (oh thank the high heavens). Unfortunately it meant that my fortnightly physio sessions for SPD were now basically useless as there is nothing my wonderful physio can really do for me :(

Development wise we are still measuring a couple of weeks ahead, but then again with a tall husband that was to be expected. I am often seen rubbing my stomach to try and encourage a certain small person to put their elbow or knee back into a place that isn't painful for me. Unfortunately as we continue to grow I continue to be jabbed. All for a good cause, not long to go now.

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