Five Things for a Friday.

1. We are moving house tomorrow. God, I hate it. I just want to be done. I have packed pretty much everything except for our clothes and big furniture, so tomorrow we just have to pack the whitegoods, couch, beds and chairs and a million boxes into the ute and trailer, take it out to mum and dads and then fill their back room with all our crap. I have tried to be a tad more organised this time around and label all the boxes properly, unlike the last time we moved when I got sick of organising and threw stuff randomly into boxes, so the toaster was packed with some underwear, nailpolish, a doona cover and some books. Which made it really fun to unpack.

2. And we settled on the new house yesterday! It's all ours, baby. First order is to change the locks, because god knows who has a key, and um, it's not the most secure house anyway. Then we can start the real work.

3. Archie's 1st birthday is in ONE WEEK. We are just having a little family party, but I have very grand plans for the cakes(s). I don't want to give too much away, but let's just say specialty baking equipment has been procured.

I am feeling all nostalgic about his birthday too. So much has changed. This time last year, I was extremely pregnant and was sick of it. I just went back and read some of the posts I wrote back then, and I can hardly recognise the person I was. What did I do with all my spare time? And my clean house? Probably just sauntered around with my teeny handbag, getting in and out of the car with ease. Being self-centred and drinking wine and flexing my pelvic floor muscles. I used to moan about having to get up at 7.30am to go to work! SEVEN-THIRTY! That would be a gigantic sleep in these days.

4. Last weekend we bummed around all day on Sunday, then went to the pool. The pool is AWESOME. And Archie goes nuts for it. And it was totally not as much work and effort as I always think. I'm looking forward to our new house being a five minute walk to the Brunswick Baths.

5. Last night I finally managed to go to yoga after having to miss it for the past couple of weeks. It was rainy and freezing but I'm glad I went, because I was THE ONLY ONE THERE. As in, it was just me and the teacher. I thought it would be super awkward but it wasn't. It was like a personal yoga session because we just did the stuff I wanted to do. I hope I can find another yoga class when we move to Warrandyte too because, man, I love it.

Readings of late.

I read a lot of stuff, online, offline, in books, in newspapers, in magazines, on the back of noodle packets and on bathroom walls. Here are some interesting things that have caught my fancy lately... My So-Called 'Post-Feminist' Life in Arts and Letters in The Nation. This article blew me away. It is easy to think that the creative industries - writing, making, art, etc- are free from institutionalised sexism, but.... no.

A bullshit-free discussion about the realities of how early parenthood affects your relationship(s) on A Practical Wedding.

I'm not a huge fan of Russel Brand and don't really know much about him, but someone tweeted this piece that he wrote about the horrorific attack in Woolwich and it hits the nail on the head for me.

Need a Job? Invent It in the NYT. "We need to focus more on teaching the skill and will to learn and to make a difference and bring the three most powerful ingredients of intrinsic motivation into the classroom: play, passion and purpose.”

Paul Miller was a technology writer and total webophile before going offline for year. He expected to become enlightened and calmer...but didn't.

Art for Archie.

For the little guy's first birthday, we didn't want to get him more toys or clothes or books or STUFF.  He already has a lot of toys and clothes and blocks and books and cute outfits and sheets and stuffed toys and random plastic things and trucks and instruments. So we decided to get him some art. Nothing too fancy, just something that will hang on his wall from now until he moves out at the age of 35, into a granny flat in the backyard because I, ah, have detachment issues. We don't have tons of cash at the moment (hi there, two mortgages!) so I don't want to spend a million buks either. Anyway, I have been scouting my fave local artists and illustrators and nothing eye-popping has jumped out at me, so I checked out the awesome site Signed and Delivered, which sells arts by local artists at relatively affordable prices.

These are on the shortlist:

That Was Radio Clash by Boo

You're the Anchor by Kelly AllenBefriend Your Blues by Eddy Sara

I also love this Ghostpatrol print:

And this one by Matte Stephens at Outre:

Five Things for a Friday

Kissing the TV. Always with the kissing. This guy!

1. Archie got his finger stuck in the hole in his Very Hungry Caterpillar book this morning. It was jammed right in the middle of a plum, and his fingertip was slowly turning purple (like , um, a plum) so I had to tear the book a bit to get his finger out. It was very dramatic.

2. Allegedly, the other night in my sleep I grabbed Lee's head with both hands, shouted, "Daddy!!" then rolled over and kept sleeping. Awkward.

3. I bought this Sally Hansen nail stuff that turns any polish into quick-dry. It has changed my life. I love having coloured nails but dom't have the time to sit and wait for them to dry. This stuff has revolutionised my motley but vast collection of cheap nail polishes.

4. I am still reading Warren Buffet's biography. It is a bloody big book. Part of me wants to give up on it because it is not aesthetically pleasing on my bedside table. I have , like, house vanity. Don't wear make up or brush my hair, but dear god I have to have a good-looking bedside table vignette.

The before shot. There is no after shot because... they are delicious..

5. I woke up in a foul mood this morning. My back was killing me because Dave (the cat, not my live-in lover) pinned me down all night and I was too zonked to move, but awake enough to be annoyed and occasionally flap my arms at Dave. And the house is ridiculously messy because we are half-packed and there is crap everywhere and I want to move to a cave in the forest. So obviously, I made cinnamon scrolls.

And an added extra: 6. I am in LOVE with this new (to me) blog Dos Family. They are two Swedish chicks who live in opposite sides of Sweden, and have two kids each and AMAZINGLY colourful over-the-top houses which look real and messy and cluttered. They write about crafty things and DIYs and design and kids and food and everything, and are WINNING at the internet. It totally makes me love my over-decorated colourful house with ten million crocheted blankets and fluoro art and cats and vegies even more. I am all in favour of more FUN in a house.

Exhibits A,B,C and D:

Glamping

Off-road pramming!

The master fisherwoman showing the vegetarian how it is done.

Mesmerising. Note the handy in-fire saucepan shelf.

Meatfest for breakfast.

Tellytubby!

Dad and Ben.

On the weekend we went camping to my grandpa's shack in Enoch's Point, near Eildon. It is a bit more glamourous than your regular camping (proper beds, fireplace, hot water) but not quite a five star hotel (need a four-wheel-drive to get there, toilet is over a mineshaft, FREEZING COLD). It was perfect for our first semi-camping experience with Archie. My parents and my brother ended up coming too, which made it a lot easier for us.

There was lots of fishing (Dad caught a giant trout on his fifth cast and was extremely smug all weekend), walking, baby-chasing, eating, and fire-poking. Arch had a ball. I think we will spend many more happy times up there, especially when he is a bit bigger and not as likely to try and eat every blade of grass/muddy boot/hot coal.

Five Things for a Friday.

1. I missed writing this last Friday. It has been getting a wee bit hectic around here, with the whole house leasing/moving/finishing uni business. On that note, I FINISHED UNI. I did my big final presentation on Tuesday night and now I am DONE. Yee-ha! Fully qualified interior designer, yo. Equal parts relief/excitement.

Also, my mum is home. I am muchos glad about that, especially as it has coincided with Archie developing a respiratory infection and being a very cranky, snotty and tired-but-not-sleeping little guy. Welcome home mama! Aaaand here's a snot monster child for you.

2. We leased out our house, to the very first people that came to the open for inspection (here is the rental advertisement). They inspected on Wednesday, applied on Thursday, then signed the lease on Friday. They seem like lovely people and I am pretty stoked that nice people are moving in. They get the keys at the start of June, so we have to be outta here before then. We have to move all our crap out, then do a bit of hole patching on the walls and cleaning, then it's all theirs. It feels a bit weird to be a landlord (I've done it before, but we were living there too and I was renting out rooms to our friends, so totally different story) but I am glad that we are keeping this house. It has lots of memories and is a good little place.

3. We are going away this weekend (making the most of the in-between renovations period which we only get, oh, once every two years) to my grandparent's shack in the bush. It is very 'rustic', and I haven't been for about 15 years, so am looking forward to it. Lee is losing his mind with excitement about going mountain biking and bushwalking and hacking stuff with chainsaws. I am looking forward to cooking marshmallows on the fire and making my dad's famous camping dessert, consisting of a banana sliced lengthways, then stuffed with choc chips and condensed milk, wrapped in foil and cooked on the fire. Yum!

4. Last weekend was Mother's Day. I was feeling ponderous and wrote some stuff. We spent the day at Lee's brother's place with his family, which was lovely. My mother-in-law crocheted me some gorgeous gloves, and knitted Archie a balaclava which is just the bloody cutest thing in the world. He looks like a Telly-Tubbie in it. It will get lots of use this weekend when we go camping so I'll take some pics then.

5. I was having a slight emotional breakdown the other day (sick baby, tired mama, cold, hungry, nothing too major) and was crying in the car, and another lady driver looked over at the traffic lights and gave me a big smile. It made me think of this New York Times article from a few years ago about crying in public.

The Hotel Project is DONE.

I submitted my final presentation for uni on Tuesday night and now I am DONE. Super duper exciting. The final project was a lot of fun, despite some late nights wrestling with ArchiCAD and Photoshop. The project was a luxury hotel in the middle of Melbourne, with a focus on sustainability. I was inspired by traditional Japanese onsen bathhouses, Turkish hamams, modern Tokyo architecture and waxed timber. For the assignment, we created a full drawing package with a CAD model, complete job folder and presentation boards.

Here are my final presentation boards (ignore the weird sample placeholders - I stuck actual tile samples to the board):

I learned a lot through the course and am glad I did it, but most of my construction knowledge comes from growing up with a builder as a dad, living in building sites for the first few years of my life and obviously from renovating houses myself.

So onward and upward! The next year or so will be interesting career-wise, as I take more control of the business and work on getting the kind of projects that excite me. And I will have my evenings back instead of tucking Archie into bed and immediately scurrying to my laptop to render and design and source and schedule. Changes ahoy!

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day. It was my first Mother's Day, so it was kind of a big deal. When I was little, I would go to the Mother's Day stall held in the multipurpose hall at my primary school and get mum a flowery mug stuffed with cheap lollies, or some stinky soap in the shape of tiny blue shells, wrapped in an embroidered hanky. I'm pretty sure I never gave much thought to the meaning behind it. All it meant was that mum got breakfast in bed and a present, then she fed us and cleaned up and loved us just like any other day.

And yesterday? It was kind of the same. Lee made bacon and caramelised walnut pancakes, and I got a card from Archie. It was a lovely morning.  Then came the flurry of snot and tears and nappies and blocks and  tiny spoons and socks like every other day. And I realised that this minutiae is the real mothering stuff. Syringing baby Panadol into a sobbing mouth at 3am with one hand. Huge snotty smiles. Staying close to me in a crowd. Finding six plastic spoons and a wooden cow in my handbag. Googling 'baby stomach rash' during lunch.

I read somewhere that the original meaning of Mother's Day came about when an American suffragette founded a special day for mothers to oppose war. That woman, Anna Jarvis, gave birth to eleven children, but seven died in childhood. Imagine. How could you not be a heap on the floor, broken into a million billion pieces forever. It kills me that there are mothers walking around everyday who are grieving babies who didn't make it, mothers with chronically ill babies in the NICU, mothers who have had nine miscarriages, mothers whose bodies can't bear children, mothers who desperately want a baby but haven't met the right person. This whole womanhood gig is filled with heartache and pain and love. The collective love and pain and anxiety of every other mother who has had a human being pulled or pushed from her body. Breathed in the scent of her baby. Grieved for a baby. Soothed a sobbing child in the middle of the night.

I missed my mum yesterday. She is only in Singapore, and gets back on Wednesday, but I still missed her. And I thought of all the mums who are missing their own mothers on mother's day. Even though my mum was only a phone call away, I felt untethered and frantic and uncomfortable. I hope that Archer can always find my legs in a room to bury his face in, will call me with happy or sad or no news, will feel the sheer brute strength of my love and the collective love of all the mothers in the world. I hope that he can tether himself to me and know that he will always be able to find his way home.

Photos by The Itchy Eyes

Legs eleven.

Dear Archer,

ELEVEN MONTHS. How did we get here?

You have assembled quite the bag of tricks now. Waving (usually after the person has left, but hey, you'll get there), blowing on hot food, standing wobble-legged on your own, doling out sloppy kisses and feeding yourself. You love to clamber up for cuddles and drag over toys or rocks or food to show me, offering them up with sticky hands, a gummy grin and stream of drool.

You are a champion sleeper, my boy. Hopefully that sees you through to adulthood and you don't jolt awake at the tiniest sound or lay wide-eyed in the wee hours next to your wife or husband and yearn for sleep. You go to bed at 7pm on the dot, and we don't usually hear from you until about 5.30am when you dad's alarm wakes up the whole house.

And nice work on the naps too, little man. Your morning sleep is a rock-solid hour and a half or sometimes two hours, and I am an efficiency machine during that time - writing, studying, cleaning, showering, eating, cooking and peeing on my own for the last time until your dad comes home. You usually have another hour or so in the afternoon to get you through the dinner/bath/books/boob/bed routine, then pass out in your cot, sleepy-eyed and floppy.

The epic bread-bun arms are still there, but you have lost the chunky baby fat and are becoming a little boy. Your hair is getting so long that it tickles your ears and you swat madly at it with flailing arms, before sticking a finger in your ear like a crazes archaeologist  And still just three teeth, but those three teeth are big and white and can do damage. You have the appetite of a burly 17-year-old teenager, and love eating sultanas, porridge, Cruskits, broccoli, chicken pieces, apples, yoghurt and blueberries. Yesterday I was feeling virtuous and made a dozen veggie rissoles that I thought would be your lunch for the next week- until you ate six of them in one sitting.

All the food is fuelling your mad race-crawling adventures around the house, thud-clunking with a toy in one hand, pulling yourself up on the couch and snuffling into the cushions in a frenzy of adrenaline. Any time you see something soft on the floor - a pillow, my handbag, a teddy, the cat - you dramatically put your head down to go nigh-nigh, and then crack up laughing. You still get a bit shy around new people, and prefer to stay close to me, but once you warm up will climb up on anyone's lap for a cuddle.

The next update will be your one year. I can't quite believe we survived this long, you and me. But what an adventure it has been.

I love you, little man.

Love,

Mum

Four Things for a Friday

 

1. I have heard about the book Operating Instructions from a few different places now, and really want to read it. I LOVE Anne Lamott's writing and am interested to see hew take on her son's first year. At the moment I am reading Snowball, Warren Buffet's biography. It is huge, like a freaking phonebook, which makes it physically a pain to read (First world problem, much?) but pretty engaging so far.

2. We are trying to eat more fish, so this week I made fish burgers and seared soy and lemon salmon. I also made pumpkin soup, risotto with walnuts, blue cheese and pear, roasted pumpkin and chickpea salad and three loaves of bread. Lee used to do all the cooking, but now that I am home more I have been getting really into meal planning and grocery shopping. I have also started reading lots of foodie blogs - my absolute hands-down favourite is Dinner: A Love Story. I think I'm going to get their cookbook soon.

3. This study in the New York Times made me cry (it doesn't take much...). It found that babies cam down when their mothers pick them up. So true. Archie snuggles in when he gets a fright (he is scared of mum and dad's robotic vacuum cleaner, random loud noises, and occasionally, peekaboo. Like he'll be fine with the first nine 'boos' but will get a huge fright on the tenth. It is SO FUNNY.) I love that they did a preliminary study into whether fathers and grandmothers have the same effect, and it does.

4. I finish uni in two weeks. CANNOT WAIT. Just to have my evenings back to sit on the couch, watch crap TV and eat the icecream that I have bribed Lee to get from the corner shop. And I'll be a fully-qualified interior designer, yo! The business won't know what hit it.

28 Before 28.

So for the past few years, I have made a list around my birthday of stuff that I want to do before my next birthday. I have never ticked off everything on the list - far from it (I'm looking at you, 26 Before 26). Sometimes the stuff carries over to the next year, sometimes it doesn't. Here is last year's list, if you are interested. I didn't do too badly, considering I had a baby two months after I made the list.

Anyway, without further ado, 28 Before 28:

1. Renovate the new house and move in - a work in progress

2. Do at least half of my cross quilt

3. Sort out our super

4. Make icecream in my blender

5. Make a quilt kinda like this one without mum's help

6. Work more in the business and start generating clients

7. Write 100 blog posts

8. Get pregnant again

9. Do the Couch to 5k program - was waylaid by pregnancy!

10. Read the unread books on my bookshelf - this is kind of half done

11. Crochet a beanie for Archie

12. Throw a rad 1st birthday party

13. Eat a durian

14. Make a skirt from my brown skirt pattern

15. Do a session of Bikram yoga

16. Make a photobook of Archie's first year

17. Make a photobook of our wedding

18. Sew a summer dress

19. Make this blog a bit prettier

20. Go to the optometrist

21. Dress Archie up in a Christmas costume (because why have kids if you can't force stupid outfits on them?)

22. Move house (twice) in a calm and orderly fashion

23. Learn to do costing sheets and quotes for work properly

24. Eat less junk

25. Drink more gin and tonics

26. Keep doing awesome meal plans

27. Make homemade Monte Carlos

28. Go to Big River

xx

Five Things for a Friday.

1. We are having photos taken of our house today (the Coburg one, not the new one) so we can get it rented out. I have been frantically cleaning and organising to make it look as lovely and rentable as possible. I will post the photos here when we get them. So now we have to organise open for inspections and all that crap. Meanwhile, we still need to silicone the shower properly, paint some end panels on the wardrobes, fill a hole in the deck, adjust the kitchen doors and, oh, just INSTALL A DRIVEWAY.

2. Archie ate a handful of kitty litter yesterday. Just the clean newspaper stuff, not the actual poo. I yelled 'NO!' at him and did big eyes and dragged him away and he cracked up laughing. Good one, mama.

3. We have been trying to get access to the new house to measure up and have a proper look at it (I sometimes drive past and stalk it on the way to uni, but Lee has only seen it once... about ten minutes before we bought it.) The agent is being a bit of a dick and not giving us the keys, so we took matters into our own hands and.... broke in. It is vacant, so it wasn't really trespassing. And it is technically our house. And the back window was already broken. So anyway, we managed to measure up, take lots of photos, check the levels and draw up a floorplan. We have sent it to our student architect friend to draw up the plans properly and then it is ON. I can't wait to just get in there and start ripping it down. Demolishing is by FAR the funnest part of renovating.

4. Arch has just learnt to walk around behind this plastic walker thing that I hate, but he loves it and is so proud of his new independence. He gets a bit out of control though once he starts pushing it, so he has to run it into a wall or furniture to stop. Between that and the constant falling down, it's like a demolition derby at our place. 

5. In case you haven't all had enough of me banging on about my famous-on-the-internet wedding, then here is a quick video of the day. I have watched it over and over and over already, and keep pausing it on the bit where Lee announces that it is not just a naming day, but actually our wedding, and the crowd goes wild.

Waterworks.

So to set the scene, I am sitting here in Ugg boots, leggings, a thermal top, Lee's gigantic old grey hoodie (with the hood up, obviously), a scarf and a dressing gown. HOT. Because it is insanely cold. What the hell, Melbourne? At least ease us in to your frigid winter, instead of going straight from 30+ degrees to THIS.

Anyway, Lee and I watched The Lion King last night. It was the second time he has seen it (I know, I know) and about the 247849th time I had seen it. And yet I still totally lost my mind and burst into tears at the end when Simba and Nala have a baby lion and they hold it up to the sky, all big blinking newborn eyes and curled-up paws. This is an animated cartoon aimed at children, and I knew the tear-jerking scene was coming, but GOD. So many tears. So this brings me to the point of this post, which is that ever since seeing the two lines on the stick I just peed on, I have become ridiculously emotional. I know my mum is reading this and rolling her eyes because I was still quite the cry-baby before getting knocked up, but this is a whole other kettle of fish. When I was pregnant I could blame the emo on hormones, but now I am thinking that it is just the way I am now. SOB.

Things which I have cried at recently:

• I am still yet to read Guess How Much I Love You to Archie without tearing up at the end. Big Nutbrown Hare whispering to a sleeping Little Nutbrown Hair... it gets me every time.
• Some random fact I read on the twits about female elephants forming a circle around an elephant in labour and trumpeting encouragement while she gives birth. Epic waterworks over this one.
• The thought of Archie going to school.
• Boston, Sandy Hook, Aurora, MIT, gang rapes in India, explosions in Texas, murders in Brunswick. I actively avoid the news when there is something horrific happening (which is often). This is a big step for an ex-news journo.
• When Archie had sore teeth and the only thing that soothed him is sitting on the floor cuddling into me, watching ABC Kids while I rubbed his back. Poor little guy.
• The thought of that episode of Love My Way. If you have seen the series, you will know what I am talking about.
• When Archie had a coin in his mouth.
• When my mum left to go overseas for three weeks. THREE WEEKS. What am I, nine years old?

Pass the tissues.

Five Things for a Friday

1. My Mum is leaving today to go to Europe for three weeks for a jaunty cruise with my grandma. I am (not so) secretly freaking out. I talk to her four times a day and rely on her for babysitting and morale support. I think I might have to just grow some balls and man up.

2. Last weekend we went to the Collingwood Children's Farm AGAIN because I love that place. Although this time it was crazy busy because the market was on and there were people everywhere. I had a fab breakfast with some lovely ladies and Archie was a relaxed little dude.

Until... we went to look at the animals and he got bitten by a gigantic rooster that was bigger than him. We have not had a good run with poultry these past few weeks. Little baby fingers must look so much like tiny, delicious worms.

3. There are a few things around these parts that need changing up, mainly my lack of proper income and Lee working a gazillion hours a week. And when you add the whole leasing our house/moving to Mum and Dad's/renovating the brand new money pit thing, plus that tiny human that hangs around me all the time and the possibility of having another tiny human, it was high time for some PLANNING! Lee and I (actually mostly me) love a bit of planning, as it can temporarily convince us that we have our shit sorted. On Wednesday we have a brainstorming session (god this sounds so wanky) and decided that the main things we want to do are to get me involved in the business more and Lee to have some time each week with Archie. So now we have to do some hardcore time management organising shizzle and figure out how the hell we are going to make this happen whilst paying two mortgages and renovating a house. WOOP.

4. On Wednesday morning I woke up with the horrible stay-at-home-mum feeling of "I actually have NO activities on for today." On days when I am home alone with Archer all day, by 3pm I am literally counting down the minutes until Lee gets home so I can pee and shower and hide in the bedroom on my own for TEN FREAKING MINUTES.

So anyway, we decided to go to the playground at Edinburgh Gardens, which was actually freaking awesome. Arch is still a bit young to get the whole playground thing but he went on the slide and crawled around chasing pigeons and eating tan bark. Then we got hungry so walked to Phat Brats on Brunswick Street and GOD it was good. I had a lamb and rosemary sausage on wholemeal bread, topped with coleslaw, mashed peas and crumbled fetta. Most of the peas and fetta got swiped by my sidekick, but on the whole it was super yum. I also met another mum with a 2-year-old called Felix, and we had a great chat about how your relationships change after you have kids, and how hard it is, and whether I should wean at 12 months or not. That's one of the things I love about this motherhood gig, that you have an instant connection to other first-time mums because you all have this OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING vibe. We are like scientists conducting a huge experiment with high stakes and we are all equally under-qualified for the job.

After lunch we went and visited Lee at a job he was finishing in Carlton. It is an apartment for a semi-famous architect, and I met him and chatted about the sense of space in art deco buildings and I surprised myself with how much I knew on the topic. Feeling all pro designer fancy business lady, and then Archie started trying to eat all the books on the bookshelf and I switched back into mum mode. Thanks darling.

5. Last night, Lee and I had a date to see Postsecret Live at Hamer Hall. I have sporadically read the Post Secret site over the years and always loved the concept. People send in anonymous handmade postcards to this guy Frank Warren's house with secrets on them. There are all sorts, from mundane stuff to really intense confessions. Anyway, last night we saw Frank speak about the 500,000+ secrets that have arrived at his house, and then the audience could come up and share their secrets. It got pretty heavy but I left feeling really connected to my fellow humans. We really are all in this together (thanks, Ben Lee).

Music for Archie.

Kid's music makes me crazy. I am not a fan. Granted, Archie is only 10 months old so we haven't really delved into the world of the Wiggles and whatnot, but I am going to try my hardest to avoid that for as long as possible. I read this article about music for kids the other day and it has stuck in my mind. The little guy has his own playlist that we play all day and sing along and dance to. He bops his little head and wiggles his bum. I have tried to choose music with simple melodies and easy lyrics. Thankfully my epic collection of early 60s and Motown music is perfect for little ears. He also loves Feist, Lily Allen and First Aid Kit. Here are some of Archie's faves:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku5UeUT7yIQ]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425GpjTSlS4]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUYaosyR4bE]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho7796-au8U]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABYnqp-bxvg]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj0Rz-uP4Mk]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qORYO0atB6g]

Five Things for a Friday.

1. It is 7.37pm but it feels much later. Daylight saving kicked out asses last weekend. Archie had been waking up at 5am (oh joy) and so of course then began waking up at 4am for a few days. But it actually turned out okay, because after  little bit of tough love (aka my old friend controlled crying) he started sleeping through until about 6am, which is much more civilised. Anyhoo. I am exhausted today.

2. It was my birthday on Wednesday! Yay! I am 27 now. It is an age that always sounded SO OLD when I was a teenager. I remember thinking that 27-year-olds must have every aspect of their life sorted. Granted, the last year has included lots of the trapping of adulthood (had a baby, got married, bought another house) but I am still waiting to feel like a grown up.

My birthday was pretty low-key but still fun. Archie woke up at 6.30am which is unheard of for him, so I was pretty stoked by that. Lee made us pancakes for breakfast before he went to work, and I hung out with the little man in the morning before meeting Mum for lunch and some shopping. I got a gorgeous leather jacket and a few t-shirts and things from my parents, and a new stereo for my car from Lee. Actually, I got most of the things on my list, which is rad. Ask and ye shall receive, yo.

I had dinner at mum and dad's place in Warrandyte with my grandma, my brother and my uncle. We had eye fillet, roast pumpkin, garlicky potatoes, gravy, peas and a lemon macadamia tart. Perfect.

3.I met my gorgeous friend Marnie at the Collingwood Children's Farm last weekend, and I am actually going there again tomorrow to catch up with the girls I used to work with. Archer is getting to an age where taking him out to cafes can be tricky, so the Children's Farm is great for making a mess and being loud and generally acting like a boisterous, almost-walking 10-month-old baby.

4. I just made some treats (brownies and cookies) for tomorrow, and now am planning on hopping into bed and reading Real Living and Inside Out with a giant pot of tea. Lee is working late again - he has been flat out all week, poor chicken - which is a pain, but I do kind of love having the house to myself in the evenings (sleeping baby aside, obviously.)

5. Oh, I almost forgot! We are internet famous once again. Our wedding is being featured on the STUNNING bridal website and magazine Hello May. I spent quite a while scrolling through beautiful wedding websites when I was planning our shindig, but never imagined that my wedding would get featured. I got all teary reading the article and looking through the photos that our fab photographer Tricia took. One day when I get sorted I will write a bit of something about the day, but for now Hello May have done a wonderful job.

(Although, they did say that my mum did all the DIY stuff, and she did do a lot of it, but I made the bowties, my hairpiece, the invitations and the decorations. Just to clear that up, ha!)

Double digits.

Dear Archer,

Ten months! You have hit double digits. Congratulations, kiddo! The past month has been a whirlwind of learning and developing. You are much more confident with pulling yourself up, and have just started standing up in your cot which is GREAT (not). I pin you down with the blankets and by the time I am at the door you are standing up and waving at me. Eventually your legs give way and you conk out and fall sleep wherever you were standing. You have pulled down the bunting and pictures around your cot and stick your arms out trying to reach the curtain too.

You are such a BOY, and rarely does a day go by when you don't end up filthy and covered in dirt. Just this morning you managed to get your whole face covered in Vegemite, right up to your hair, and all over your hands right up to your (second) elbows. Minutes after I cleaned you off, you crawled into the wet shower and got saturated, then crawled out the door and got covered in dirt.

I can see a bit of your temper coming out, which might turn into tantrums soon. You get visibly angry and frustrated sometimes, especially if you are waiting in the high chair for food. You throw spoons, bang the tray, scrunch up your little face and bellow and spit at me. It is a bit terrifying but mostly still cute.

You love pulling everything out of my handbag, pulling books off the bookshelf (and ripping the pages out), crawling on the grass, having a shower with Dad, Vegemite toast, and Dave and Layla. You LOVE daddy's guitars, music and dancing. You don't like eggs in any form, plums, being in the car for too long and people wearing sunglasses.

On Saturday night the three of us went out for pizza at the place around the corner that made the pizzas for our wedding. You were perfect, sitting up and yabbering away. You had your first taste of pizza, and loved it. There was a family with three little girls sitting nearby and you were cracking up and giggling as they pulled funny faces at you.

Lee has taught you how to turn lightswitches on and off, which makes you very proud. Except you have just figured out the you can also turn powerpoints on and off, and the dishwasher, and the TV. I couldn't figure out why the dishwasher would turn itself on randomly for no reason, or stop halfway through a cycle, until I realised that you reach up and press the buttons yourself. Mama's little (un)helper!

I think you will stand properly on your own soon. You can stand for a few seconds before reaching out for balance. I love how you reach out for me and climb up in my lap for a cuddle, and give big, sloppy open-mouthed kisses with a cascading drool waterfall all over my face.

Yesterday was the six year anniversary of when your Dad and I met. It seems strange that you weren't in existence all that time ago. But maybe you were. There is a poem I have read about this very thing, about being a speck in my mother's hair the night her and my father first danced, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. You are part of both of us, and yet entirely your own person.

I love you, little man.

Love,

Mum

Five Things for a Friday.

 

1. Feeling a bit blah this week. I have been hibernating a bit due to chilly weather and lots of uni work to do. Easter was pretty low key, but it did involve a ridiculous amount of chocolate, so I have been eating lots of veggies and walking more to compensate. I have also been baking lots of bread, so a salad followed by half a loaf of fresh, buttery bread is still healthy, right? RIGHT?

2. So, you know how I was looking after two chooks for a friend who lives around the corner? Well. There is now only one chook. Let's just leave that there, shall we?

3. Our house is getting valued this afternoon, so I am frantically trying to tidy it up and make it look as expensive as possible. This might involve putting the baby in a cupboard for the rest of the day and not letting him out until the valuer has left.

4. I have lots and lots of things on in the next few weeks. An enormous uni project is due soon, lots of paperwork and crap to do with our new house (stat decs! soil tests! planning permits! yay!), a few work projects that will take up time, lots of birthdays (including mine!) and in the middle of it my mum/babysitter goes away to Europe for three weeks. So instead of actually getting my shit sorted and making lists and getting stuff done, I am obviously blogging and eating leftover Monte Carlos from playgroup this morning.

5. Archie and I visited my favourite opshop (Super Savers on St Georges Rd in Thornbury) and I picked up a knitted blanket for $3 and a gorgeous new top from Seed for $10. It's made of silk and promptly got covered in baby drool and Weetbix. Awesome.

Have a lovely weekend!

First tooth.

So the Easter Bunny hooked up with the Tooth Fairy and brought Archie a tooth on Easter Sunday. It was relatively crisis-free, excluding a few crankypants moments on Saturday afternoon.

And now I live in fear of every feed. He has already mastered whacking me in the face with his bowl, pinching and twisting the skin on my neck, stomping on my tummy, headbutting me in the nose with his massive noggin and clawing my eyes out. Imagine putting your nipple in a piranha's mouth for ten minutes several times a day. CHOMP.

Wish me luck, peeps.

Five things for a Friday.

So apparently shoes belong in the mouth, not on the feet. Der Mum.

1. I had lunch with Tess yesterday at Miss Marmalade in Brunswick. It was yum! And there's a good little space out the back with toys and carpet and high chairs for babies to go wild and hang out together. Afterwards I drove past our new house (yay!) and we had a quick look at the little park at the end of the street. I cannot WAIT to move there. I know I keep going on about the location, but is 100 metres from Brunswick Library, the Brunswick Baths, the Retreat, two kinders, a maternal and child health centre, lots of friends houses,  stacks of cafes, Royal Park and trams. For someone who grew up within walking distance of NOTHING (except my best friend's house) and had to drive everywhere, this is very exciting.

2. We are chook and cat-sitting this weekend for a friend who lives around the corner. I'm preeeeeeetty excited about that. We had chooks when I was a kid and I definitely want to get them again one day. I think it's great for kids to grow up with as much messy, real, sustainable stuff as possible. I'm also dead-set on getting beehives too. And we were compensated with a stack of Swiss chocolate, so yay!

3. I'm reading two books from the library at the moment. One day I might actually read some fiction again, but for now it's still baby books. The first is called Buddhism for Mothers by Sarah Napthali, and it is actually really awesome. I wish I had read it when I was pregnant and could refer to it in the crazy early days after Archie was born when I was unravelling slightly. It's not woo-woo and too spiritual, but has basic, centred advice about dealing with the chaos of babies and kids and the struggle with selflessness and loving your baby so much you actually worry that you might eat him. (But those arms are so scrumptious!)

The other book is called Mothers Raising Sons by Nigel Latta. It's okay, so far. Lots of stuff about the differences and similarities between boys and girls. It's not that relevant now, but might become more important when I have a smelly, grunty teenage boy and no idea how to communicate with him.

4. Today is Good Friday, and NOTHING is open. Lee is working today and Monday, so Easter it is a bit of a non-event for us, although Archie might have his first taste of chocolate on Sunday, depending on how generous I'm feeling. Lee's sister, her partner and their foster son are staying tonight and I had grand plans of making a yummy Thai salad with satay dressing. YUM. But, all the supermarkets and shops are shut.  I totally didn't realise that everything actually shuts (first world problem). So I think we will be having some sort of pasta dish with minimal vegies as there is not much food in the house. GOOD ORGANISING, CLARK.

5. I went to yoga last night! There is a little fitness studio place across the road and I got a flyer last week advertising yoga classes on Thursday nights. It was so, so good to actually do some intentional movement that isn't just lugging around a massive wriggly baby or half-assed stretching. Feeling a bit achey today but it's good pain.