Reality: What You Make It...

I keep starting and stopping posts tonight. I can't seem to hang on to a thought. So I am going to take some advice from a (deeply moving) link I read earlier in the week and it is half in response to some criticism I received during the week about this blog not being "real" enough... 

"Work hard to find the beauty in each stage of your child's life. When you are washing the jam off your face, know that someday you will pine for that unsolicited kiss of a child. When you are cleaning the crumbs from the car seat, know that one day they will be driving away from you. When you are in the midst of whatever battle royale you find yourself in, know that every moment is a gift, even the sucky ones."

I think that's a lot about why I blog. I can spend the day exhausted, looking less than fresh, my house smelling less than fresh and acquiring the odd war story about stepping in poo or catching vomit in my own hands. But later, when it's quiet and the everybody under this roof is bathed, fed and either asleep or horizontal in front of the TV I get to sit. I look at pictures from the day/week. I reflect.

Call it idealistic. Call it stupidity. Call it a check out of reality. Call it narcissistic. I don't care. As it goes, not all the time but most of the time, I don't want to sit here and wallow in the boring woes of a mothers day. I choose not to focus on the fact she didn't eat all her dinner and I filled her up on yoghurt instead. I feel no need to relay the moments she kind of irritated me with her whines about not being allowed to play with the toilet brush. I don't feel better for whining about my 6:00am wake-up (it might be 5:00am tomorrow so best I get on with it).

Infact I want to sit and find the beauty in the day. I want to tell Steve about how she now answers "yes" to a question. I want to enjoy the memory of the cuddles and kisses. I want to share all the things I am excited for with new baby on my blog. I want to post a beautiful picture of her gorgeous pink baby toes.

Sue me.

Feels like too often positivity is read as naivety. I don't need to exude apathy to prove I'm living a real life. And I do think there's something to be said for what a friend told me once... That if you smile it sends happy endorphins around your body and you feel happier.

Nooooo that's not to say we shouldn't talk to our friends when we need to. Cry when you need to. But maybe after the tears we'd bounce back a little better if we're better practiced at "finding the beauty".

Maybe.

Maybe it's worth a thought.

WW That Window Again...

15 Weeks

Read my announcement here! 

Newborn and New Tricks...

So last week I had the honour of doing my very first real photoshoot. Not for a friend. Not even for a friend of a friend. A real life customer. PAYING for my photography services. *Gulp*

Well customer of mine came in the form of a 7 week old little Lucas. Oh he was scrumptious and hours of selecting, uploading, editing and sorting these pictures has me thinking about newborn days... 24 weeks to go...

24 weeks and what will I have to look forward to...?

The smell. Obviously. Who doesn't love that musky milky eau de baby head smell?

The "mip" noise they make. The "meowwwwwgh" cat like yawn-esc noise. The new cry that's all effort and no real volume. It's silent here right now as Euna naps and I can imagine these sounds filling sound space.

The clenching and stretching fingers. The splay out like ballerinas' fingers and crunch back in till the knuckles go white. Everyone will slip a finger in and exclaim how strong he/she is.

Newborn clothes. Soft comfy cottons. Blankets. Hats. I'll look at them all day everyday and be amazed by their tininess every single time.

Feeding. Long snuggly feeds and this blissed out, milk coma, happy faces they pull after.

Chest sleeping. Contented to be (back) near you and ridding the up-down motion of your chest as you breathe (-in the beautiful head smell from above).

Nighttimes. Yes they're exhausting but in those small hours of the morning it could be so easy to believe you're the only two people awake in the world. The silence. The dark. Snuggled. Whispers and shushing in the night.

Morning smiles. Peering over from your pillow to the best smiles ever. No one has ever looked so pleased to see you (and you only saw them 2 hours ago...)

*******

In other news Euna continues to (relentlessly) grow up. Most noticeably is her ability to communicate. She points at things she wants, places she wants to go and people she wants to hug. She literally laughs out loud to everything that pleases her. She particularly partial to a LOL when she knows she's been cheeky, like if she steals a piece of my toast, unravels a toilet roll or steal my keys out my bag. It's always followed by a cheeky "eh eh eh EH!" 

 Hiking with friends...

 Out in the open...

 Ah blue skies...

 Woahhhh... Leaning tower of Euna...

 "Look, Daddy!"

 Her leaf...

"Selfie"...

 15!?!?! FIFTEEEEEEN!!! Slow down bumpy!

Love her. Love the bump that's growing. Only too aware that things are only there whilst they're there. Always appreciative.

Friends, Photographs and Food...

The weekend appears to of whizzed by without a thought to anything other than friends, photographs and food... So I find myself with a big belly, nothing much to say but a lot of pics to share...

Trying for a baby...

You'll have to excuse the slight melodrama to this one... I thought about editing it all day... But it's how I felt at the time... So here it is...

Another failed month confirmed today. We didn't have this with Euna. We didn't have to wait. I think I overlooked how lucky that made us at the time. Today I have a better appreciation.

So what is trying for a baby all about?

Counting. Days until you ovulate. Cycle days. Days past ovulation. Days till you're due on. Days for doing the deed... Lots of waiting. Lots of anticipating. Lots of looking at calendars. Counting. Checking your counting. Reinterpreting how you're counting to give yourself another day of hope or to make yourself another day closer to this or that phase.

Waiting. Time is a funny thing. I find myself entirely unable to grab on to a frame of mind and keep it. The way I feel about trying for a baby seems to be fluid and cyclical. Cycles of feelings rotate past milestones of optimism and positivity and round to pessimism and sometimes despair. At times those cycles are minutes long and other times they're days long.

Oddly I feel more contented when I'm feeling pessimistic. I can't be disappointed. I'm stronger in negativity somehow. If I could stop the merry go round I would stop it when my head's in a "I know it's not happened this month" place. But I can't. The feeling comes, I feel secure, then it goes, slips on past. Then I'm in my dreaded "I think I'm pregnant!" frame of mind and I'm scared of the disappointment.

Good part to this journey is how excited it's making me. The suspense is really building. I know how happy I'll be when that second line finally appears. I feel a bubble of baby 2 love building in me and I will honestly be able to say I loved this baby right when it was a twinkle in his/her (I wanted to write "his" there for some reason) Daddy's eye.

Come on baby. We're here. We have so much love in the waiting in the wings, we just need our starring player.

Oh baby girl and don't think we've forgotten about you. So much of this is for you. A sibling. A friend. Someone to get our family in jokes. Someone you laugh about, plot against and manipulate your Dad and I with. Someone to grow old with. You're going love this baby so much too, I know you are.

Tick tock. Day 1. Month four. Bring it.

Only confirmation of failed cycle was later revoked... This one's trouble already! Little pickle... :D :D :D 

Some snaps from the week...

MY Right...

From some angles we're all the same.

We all love our children. We all want to do our best for them. We all want what we see as the best of the world for them... and for ourselves. We're all scared that isn't or will not happen. There's a little bit of us all who listens to those around us and silently we run a comparison commentary. We all aspire and we are all humbled to some degree by failure.

It's easy to focus on the differences between each other. It's easy to let these differences make us appear to be so set apart we're not even the same species anymore.

I had my first real dose of blog backlash last week. Some people read the my pregnancy announcement (A Letter to My Daughter... Because I Want to Give Her a Sibling) and took it as a slate on raising only children... It wasn't. But this is what is right for my family. No other version of right for anyone else's family will ever make this version less right for mine.

When I first had a baby accepting my right from other people's right was difficult. Be that because at times I wanted everyone to do what I was doing or because at times I wanted to do what everyone else was doing. I imagined either would validate me and my choices. There's something really secondary school about it. Safety in numbers. Following the crowd.

Not now. Not this time. Another bonus to second time around. All I need is my right to be right.

First walking trip to the beach...

 First feel of sand...

Loved it...

YEY! MESS!

Highjacked sandcastle...

Could it get anymore British??