feelin' a little low

so B had to take matthew to the hospital last night, his breathing was pretty bad & the staff pushed him up to the top of the queue.
they dosed him up with lots of ventolin & also gave him prednisolone & decided it would be best for him to stay overnight so B had to stay with him & both of them only got a few hours sleep the whole night.  he has a viral infection which triggered this asthma attack.

matthew was much better this morning, & after being seen by the doctor, they were allowed to come home.  both of them looked pretty spaced out & B had a handful of pages of info for me to injest, all about asthma & an asthma plan for matthew.

at the moment he has to have 6 puffs of ventolin using a spacer & a face attachment (which he does not like at all) every four hours for the next two days.  hopefully things will start to improve a lot as we are all over this whole "sick" thing...

latest news on The House is basically that we can't get it.  all to do with complicated bank stuff & so we're not going to the auction on saturday & the search continues...  needless to say, we are both gutted.  i guess something else will come up, hopefully sooner rather than later.

anyway, sorry about the downer post today, i did make some banana bread today which is always a hit & there were 4 big smiles after dinner tonight :)

later alligators
x

ps  i can hear B & james doing rhyming word flash cards, he really loves the alphabet, spelling & words at the moment - makes me smile :)

snotty, snottier, snottiest

so the boys, including daddy, are all sick again...

matthew appears to have a snot-erfall streaming out of his nose, down the sides of his mouth like a gleaming mo and off the end of his chin onto whatever might be lying in it's path - this would include me, sigh...

B is sneezing his head off in our bedroom, door closed so the kids stay away from him.  they think this is the best thing ever, having daddy at home for so many days & they get to spread their "love" (aka snotty noses) all over our bed... nice...

we've been approved (again) for a nice home loan, this time with a much more interested institution - 5 more sleeps until the auction!
i've been loosing sleep over this, trying not to get emotionally involved but i can see a tree-house & hammock in the future of this house's backyard & all it needs is US!

i've finally uploaded 10 900 (i kid you not!) photos to flickr because you know what will happen if i didn't - something will happen to the compooper & they. will. all. be. GONE.  mwah ha ha ha haaa! 

so yeah, i did it.  i started in october of last year but finished it today.
it didn't take that long, i just have a really short attention span and get bored extremely easy :)  (it must be my extreme intelligence)

it's been p-ing with rain here today (all weekend in fact) which makes for happy families inside (not) so i've done a little research for "activities" in case you'd like to do some (or stick pins in your eyes, sometimes it equates to the same kind of feeling)

first up is a recipe to make playdoh which you can find here, i made playdoh the other way (cooking it) and by the time i'd finished the kid had lost interest (typical) so give this a go & let me know what you think okay? okay.

second on the agenda would be more suited to sunny, warm weather - we did this the other day & had a blast (me included) & B got a nice surprise when he got home from work.  get the recipe here & have fun!  i doubled it up and made different colours but by the time the kids had finished, it was all one delightful shade of greyish purple :)  btw, the "paint" goes on darkish but it dries quickly to a lovely lighter shade, not unlike the chalk colours funnily enough!

now for some reason blogger isn't letting me upload the photos i wanted to show you of the fun that was had, so you'll have to click over to my flickr account to look-see

well, it's 4:30pm so i'd better start thinking about what i probably won't end up making for dinner - i'm terrible at the whole cooking/dinner thing...  don't get me wrong, i can cook & do so fairly well when i can be arsed, but am i arsed? not so much.
i will admit it internet, i have, on occasion, given my kids cereal (weetbix to be exact, so it's good for them) for dinner.  shock horror!
i probably won't be giving them that for dinner tonight however, i might give them "lunch" as james calls it when i ask him what he wants for dinner.

me:  what do you want for dinner punks?
him:  lunch please mummy (so polite sometimes)
me: (phew!) okay baby

i will try not to give them "lunch" for dinner but who knows what will happen in the next hour & a half... :)

i will leave you with this little gem from the weekend

me:  punks, what would you do all day if you were mummy?
him:  i would fix something & i would play in your room

apparently i'm a bit of a handy-woman & he loves our "big" bed  :)

arrivederci!

hello, how are ya?

so hi there :)

i've been meaning to do this blog thing for so long now but time seems to have been extra scarce since the second kid was born 17 months ago...

things are starting to look up and i'm finding it easier to get on with things now that he can entertain himself or play with the first kid (when they aren't hitting each other or fighting over the empty toilet roll cardboard insert thingy)

so anyway, i want to use this blog as a way of keeping in touch with family & friends overseas & interstate (ie not here), sharing my depression (and hopefully helping someone else out there with depression & anxiety by doing so), sharing my "mummy" life, documenting my craft projects that i've attempted & also a place where i can keep track of all the "tech" stuff - madeit shop, etsy shop, twitter, etc

i don't really know what i'm going to write about without boring anyone to tears but it might be entertaining enough for someone out there in the great big www to read so here's a bit about me

i was born in cape town, south africa & grew up in a beautiful suburb called camps bay.  we went to a school which had the most beautiful view of the mountain & the sea and we lived about 5 minutes walk (downhill, more like 15 minutes uphill) from the beach (god i miss it so much!)

when i was 24 i went to london,  my plans involved extensive travel & "finding myself".  needless to say i did not travel extensively (unfortunately!) but i did "find myself" & i also found an australian bloke who ended up asking me to marry him while we were having a picnic in regents park (everybody together now, aaaahhhhh)

about a year later & much organising via email & fax (yes, we still used faxes occasionally back then), i took him home to cape town to meet my parents for the first time two weeks before the wedding (ha!).  i met his parents for the first time too and after we "wed" we spent about 3 months in cape town before heading for perth, australia

as i wasn't allowed to work on my visitors visa, & B was getting job offers from the east coast more than he was getting on the west coast, we upped & moved again - this time to melbourne where we are still (i since got my permanent residency & became a true blue aussie citizen too)

we've been here for just over 9 years now, although in that time we've moved 6 times & might very well be moving again in the next few months hopefully!  we're looking to buy a house for the first time as we have two small animals children as well as two small dogs (sometimes it's hard to tell the difference) and we need more space.  space not only for the humans & animals, but also all the c-r-a-p that seems to have infiltrated our house since the first kid was born 3 & a half years ago

let me introduce the kids to you, the first kid is james aka punky (previously known as hootchi)

james was born in 2006, 4 weeks premature but i was okay with that as i was SO over being pregnant & in 40C heat everday too...
he was born by emergency c-section (i won't go into the gory details) & we fell in love immediately.  at that stage both of our families were either overseas (mine) or interstate (B's) so we just got on with things for a while i guess.  families visited from o/s & i/s & after they all left we seemed to get back into our routine

until i stopped b/feeding, that is.  james decided he didn't want his mothers milk anymore at about 7 months old so i weaned him & after about a month i started feeling my depression rearing it's ugly head.  i became super anxious about everything as well as housebound and just wasn't doing very well.  i went back to the doc & got my anti-depressants re-issued & was back on track again after a couple of days!  incredible stuff these meds!

during this time, my outlaws in-laws moved over to melbourne from perth & what a god-send they were!  it took me a long time to be able to fully trust them (nothing to do with them, everything to do with me, my anxiety & depression) but as soon as i did, i was able to sort of relax on the days they had james at their house for the day.
"me" time - it was lovely :)

then we had a little "accident" & i was pregnant again...  not what i had planned at all but we went along with mother nature & i went along to my doc who told me i had to come off the meds again.  the first time around with james, i was fine (must have been the happy hormones or something) but this time around was, in a word, s-h-i-t

i didn't really want to be pregnant & i didn't want to have to divide my time between james & the "other" kid.  i became anxious & depressed again & started seeing a psychologist who was amazing 

one morning after seeing her & just finishing with a relaxation exercise, i was travelling down in the elevator when i felt my waters break.  either that or i'd just wee'd in my pants & the guy standing next to me had no idea :)
so off i trotted downhill to the closest public loo to confirm my suspicions

panic!

ring husband, who's office is directly across the road but i don't want to move around/walk/run in case baby is born on the tram tracks!
can't get hold of husband, leave message on husbands voice-mail, call husband's boss, can't get hold of husbands boss (where the hell is everyone!), leave message on husbands boss's (?) voice-mail during which time husband has tried to call me...  sigh...

eventually i see husband approaching from across the road as i am trying to explain over the phone to the midwife at the hospital what has happened. she says come straight in. we hail a cab (with leather seats, nice...) & head towards the hospital (all the while i'm worrying about amniotic fluid leaking onto said nice leather seats & the poor driver, how will he clean it up? etc etc) (we didn't tell him, i hope his car was okay)

during all this, james is with nanna & pa & i have one less thing to worry about.  text messages are sent & phone calls are made to inform those on the "need to know" list.  my OBGYN is called and eventually strolls in (his office is directly upstairs for crying out loud!), checks me out (as did the midwife before him) & declares that i will need to stay in the hospital until baby is born

right.

his plan is that i stay there & we try to keep baby inside for as long as possible to give him the best chance possible.  bear in mind, i'm seven months preggers & still technically have 8 weeks to go until my "due" date.  right, so 8 weeks in hospital - no kids, no dogs, no cooking or cleaning (not that that happened all too often anyway), it was starting to sound like a holiday to me :) OK doc, whatever you say :)

the bliss waiting lasted 3 days & then i started getting contractions while waiting patiently (not) for an ultrasound.

let me just say, OW.

i didn't really feel my contractions too badly with james as i had an epidural pretty much as i was walking out of the elevator (not really but close) but this, this was very, very ow...

midwifes are asking "on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain?" & i am asking about the epidural (i'm a wuss like that you see).  doc eventually strolls in (again), "assesses" (is that spelt correctly?) me which in it's own way was pretty flipping painful & tells me he'd like me to try for a natural birth this time

right.

we'd had this conversation in his office before & me being the people-pleaser i am, didn't really argue about it too much.
so, here we were, trying for a natural birth...

right (again)

here we go

are we done yet?

i sat on the big silver ball thingy & breathed the happy gas, and after about 4 years hours of agony the doc strolls in again, "assesses" me again & declares i'm not dilating & baby is in distress so he will have to perform emergency c-section (again - same doc, same baby distress thing as with james)

i was just happy to be getting my epidural! after that things moved really fast & before we know it, matthew is born (you can see some photos here)

it was all so surreal, and even when we went home & had to leave him there because he was having trouble maintaining his body temperature & needed a bit of light therapy for jaundice it didn't seem real.  when we did bring him home, it felt more real.  but he didn't feel like he was my baby, it felt like we were just looking after him & i didn't really bond with him properly for a long time.

i think it took about 10 - 12 months to be honest, a strange thing really but i think it also had a lot to do with the depression thing (i love him to bits now, he's such a cheeky little character with a great sense of humour & he loves (idolizes) his big brother to bits).
i didn't b/feed him, which was a really hard decision to make especially due to his prematurity, but i figured i'd be a better mother to matthew & james if i had all my mental bits together & coping than if i didn't and was spiraling downwards again & unable to care for either of them

two months after all that stuff, i had to go back to hospital and stayed in for a few days because they thought i had an infection from the c-section & then had to go back again because they figured out it was a cyst on my ovary  a twisted ovary an abscess on my ovary which had burst & needed immediate operating

right.

another major operation (called a laparoscopy) but i won't go into the gory details (i was more of a wuss with this op than the two emergency c-sections i have to say)

after that i felt muuuuucchhhh better :)

then matthew had to have a double hernia operation, B got the chicken pox for the first time in his 36 years & james had to go to hospital in the ambulance (with me) for his first ever croup attack

sigh...

not much has happened since all that, except around the start of the year i fell off the back of the armchair whilst trying to remove the creeper vine that was growing inside the top of the window frame in the lounge room (don't ask) & had to go to the hospital emergency room with suspected fractured ankle...
x-ray said nothing, doc said bad sprain, here - take these crutches for the next two weeks & i laughed

winter has been c-r-a-p with the kids & i bouncing snot & illness off of one another but things are really starting to look up now with spring in the air!

so, this is about the most i've typed in one sitting in oh, about 3 years & i'm pretty much worn out from eating all those jelly babies while i was doing so & i have to package up another order that came in from donna while i was playing around with the settings on this here blog & i have to get the kids' snacks etc ready for the two house-for-sale open for inspections we're schlepping to tomorrow morning & possibly also fit a shower somewhere in between all this & sleep so i'll be off for now

please do visit again soon - the next installment of "this is my life" should be up within the next few weeks (ha ha ha!) soon.  i want to talk (write?) about my crafty self & other crafty crafters (and i might even link to some cool crafts you can DIY too!)

adios amigos
x