March 22 - The Big Day

I'll spare you all the details and just stick to some of the basics.

At 6:30 in the morning I was sent back to a pseudo birthing room for monitoring. Nothing too exciting was happening so I got to speak to the big doctor on the floor. Here was where I was nervous. It was going to completely depend on this doctor as to whether they just went straight for a c-section or whether I would have the opportunity to have a VBAC. Luck was on my side and the doctor gave me the option. Not only that, but since it had been over 24 hours, he was willing to induce (again, some doctors would just say "time is up, cut her open").

They got me all set up in an actual birthing room and had me all hooked up before Seth got there. I wasn't on the drip very long before stuff started happening. It really didn't take very long and I think it surprised some people. My body just needed a little nudge and it took off on it's own.

Ok, so no details along the way, I had a VBAC.



The downside, I ended up in the "Operating Theatre" at the end of it all for a tear. Apparently it was a bad one. At the end of the day, I ended up with a spinal for that. While I was able to walk around the next day, I may not be able to run for another three months. Sigh.

But this baby is quite cute, so I'll just spend the next three months cuddling and loving him!



He came out at 3.558 kg (7 pounds 13 ounces) and measured 50 cm (a little more than 19.5 inches).

March 21 - Happy Birthday to Seth

So this post should be all about how we celebrated Seth's birthday. In a nutshell, we spent it at the hospital.

Seth took me in at about 5:30 in the morning with poor Lilly in tow. The ER hooked me up to a monitor and said we'll send you upstairs to the birthing rooms.

Seth took Lilly to school eventually and I sat around hooked up to more machines. By the time Seth got back to the hospital, I was in a regular room just waiting. Because I had a previous C-section, they wanted to keep me at the hospital for monitoring. Which meant nothing. Someone just came in every once in a while and asked how I was feeling.

So I ended up spending the night there, Lilly spent the night with a friend and Seth got his own bed.

At least Seth got out of work for the day!

March 19 - Family Photos

Before we had Lilly, Seth and I took some pictures of us in the 'nursery'. We had a cute frame that went with the theme in the room and we put a picture of Seth and pregnant me in it.



We thought it would be cute to take a picture for the new arrival to take another picture. Seth thought it would be nice to see if we could reenact the picture. Which would have been fine but the bibs looked a very unflattering (understatement of the year, I couldn't even button the sides!!). But we still went through with it.



And well, we couldn't leave Lilly out of it, so we got a shot or two with her and her silliness.




Lilly talking to Pooper Head -



And normal family behavior -

9 months - March 15

I took these because someone asked for a picture. I don’t see myself very often and when I did I was amazed at the size of my belly. Oh my, I was big. The day before I took the pictures someone asked if I was having twins. I said no, I’m just due next week. They asked if I was sure. What do you say to that?

Student of the Week - March 7

Lilly was student of the week in her class. She got a certificate that says she always has a smile on her face and being friendly to other students.

Does this mean she is well behaved? Or that she talks a lot to the other kids?

Charlie and Lola - Feb 27

One of Lilly’s favorite book series revolves around the characters Charlie and Lola. They are even a cartoon series. Lilly loves them! So when the bookstore in the city had a Charlie and Lola morning, we were one of the first to sign up. Ok, probably not, Charlie and Lola are very popular and they even added an extra session.

On this day the workers at the bookstore just read stories, had a trivia contest and had a coloring contest (I’m sorry, that would be colouring). Lilly won the trivia contest. And I knew all the answers as well. But I didn’t help her cause I couldn’t sit on the floor, Seth did though.



Oh and they asked for people to come up who thought they acted like Charlie and Lola and for some reason Lilly raised her hand (she is very much like a Lola, I’ll admit). But the boy that was sitting beside her also raised his hand and they were both invited to the front and it was assumed they were brother and sister. Lilly and this boy won a prize for being a good Charlie and Lola.

February 22 – Family Picnic at Lilly’s school

Everyone was invited to bring a picnic dinner and sit around the school lawn to socialize. They had a bouncy castle for the kids. Last year’s rock band sang some songs. We ate pizza. Sounds like Lilly wrote this post.

Lilly’s First Day of School – Feb 7

The first year of school is called Prep down here and the school year starts in February. Lilly just turned 5 so she is just the right age to start school. She will be one of the younger kids in her class but when people asked if I considered holding her back and a year and I said no immediately. This girl is ready for school. She is beyond ready. She is the one that is always sitting on the librarian's feet at storytime and she always has her hand up to answer the questions. She wants to know how everything works and is intrigued by characters in stories. It was time for her to go to school! And so we sent her for her first day as a Preppie (I don't know if that's how you would spell it, but that's what these kids are called).



Seth had the day off so we were able to walk her to school together.



We went into the school and found her hook to hang her enormous backpack on. We walked her into her classroom and looked at all the different activities. She drew us a picture and built with some blocks. She was fine. There were no tears. There were no lengthy good-byes.




When we picked Lilly up we took her out for some Gelato.



We had taped the Super Bowl because I scheduled a doc appointment right in the middle of it (I know it was wrong but my planner didn’t have the Super Bowl written down). Lilly also heard us talking about it and said she wanted to watch, too. When we watched it that night we already knew who won, one of the mothers at pick up shouted it out. We still enjoyed the game although it was from Australian tv so we didn’t get to see the commercials. The next couple of pics could be offensive to some people, so be warned. We were just having fun and the bottle was empty. I promise.

Funfields with the Family - Feb 6

Seth joined the Social Club at work for the purpose of getting cheap tickets to this park. The weather was cold yet sunny. They had a couple of water slides and bumper boats but we passed on these since the weather was chilly. There were small rides for the kids and go karts for the big ones. There was a really long toboggan ride and a swinging ship. The best part was that there were barely any people there so waiting in line was limited to just a few minutes.





I could play miniature golf and that was it. So I took some pictures and eventually got a magazine to read. Lilly rode the kiddie rides and then started on the bigger stuff. She wouldn’t go back to kiddie land after that. Lilly got Seth to take her on the toboggan ride about 14 times. Then there were the go karts. Lilly did talk us in to playing about 4 rounds of mini-golf.

And then there were Bees –

Before we left on vacation in December I noticed we had a lot of bees going in and out of our gutter in our back garden. I was a bit concerned because I hang out my clothes out there and Lilly likes to play in the dirt/mud and I didn’t want to have to worry about bees. When we got back, Seth said he would take care of the bees and went to buy some spray. Well, said spray didn’t come with a straw so it couldn’t be sprayed right into the gutter.

We called the rental company and they got a bee guy to come out pretty quickly. So the bee guy comes out, takes a look around outside and basically tells me that it looks like our place is going to fall down. There are huge cracks in the outside structure of the house. Awesome, but really I never noticed it before, they may have been there since we moved in. So he puts on this spacesuit looking outfit and goes to spray the bees. And it starts to rain. I don’t know if this will make the spray less effective but I’m happy he’s taking care of this and it’s not Seth standing on the ladder. The guy says wait 7-10 days and if there is still activity, give me a call.

After 7 days with it raining just about every day, I thought everything was fine. Even after 10 days it all looked good. But at about 12 days, I didn’t think it was fine. There was more activity in the gutter than before and that worried me all over again. AND I was hearing strange noises in the wall. So I called the bee guy. When the bee guy came back, I told him I could actually hear the bees humming from inside the house. And then we noticed that the paint was bubbling just under where we assumed the nest was. The only thing between me and a nest full of active bees, was a layer of paint. So the bee guy sprayed outside, came inside, scraped away the paint and sprayed some more. And then, to make sure he got them all, he drilled some holes in the wall and sprayed again.

And then he covered all the holes with duct tape.



It’s not as impressive as my grandparents had, but I love that I now have duct tape on my wall because of bees.

Lilly’s 5th Birthday

Lilly is a huge fan of Bindi Irwin so she wanted a zoo party for her birthday. It was either that or My Little Pony and I was thinking I could do more with an animal cake than a horse cake. (You can see where my mind goes with these things).

While we were waiting for everyone to arrive I had the kids make a little craft. They made animal faces that I took home and made a banner for Lilly.





I used sand buckets and put all the childrens’ names on them. They were able to use these throughout the party to collect their prizes. We hid some small animals and the kids had to hunt a certain amount to get a bigger prize. They threw balls into a bucket and we played a game of animal charades. The kids spent a lot of time in the sand pit and just running around – makes for easy planning.





The cake was an interesting project for me. Since we were doing animal/zoo, Lilly agreed on a turtle cake. And this was what I came up with. She really liked it and I got some good reviews on how it tasted.

The Rest of January

Lilly got a haircut and I don’t know why her “fringe” looks like it is parted, but it looked like that for several days. It was the straightest haircut but I guess I shouldn’t expect much. Lilly sits really still but I’ve never met someone who can cut her hair straight.



I passed the 7 month mark.


Lilly took the picture so I do look like a giant. But the bump looks like a volleyball under there. I am carrying this one much different than Lilly.

Lilly participated in some Summer Reading Activities at the library. We made the Australian flag for Australia Day.



We went to play at the Melbourne Zoo. I was hoping to see the baby orang-utan. I saw the baby but the mother was very protective and had it tucked under her arm the entire time she was feeding. So instead I got a picture of these two who were very amusing. Notice one is holding the tap on and the other has his tongue out to slurp the water up.



We also got to see both baby elephants at the same time. They were very cute playing around in the water.





Lilly and I went to the Children’s Garden and she participated in a class. She learned about a lot of different plants and got to plant some lettuce in the garden. She brought a plant home and watered it very well for 6 weeks. It is now just a pot with dirt in it.

End of year vacation

The family took a 10 day holiday through western Victoria to Adelaide, then back along the Murray river in northern Victoria. We camped 5 of the nights in a borrowed tent (our two man tent just wasn't big enough for the three of us plus my huge pillow). We stayed in a hotel the first night and the three nights we were in Adelaide.

Dec. 27 - Melbourne to Warrnambool

Dec. 28 - Warrnambool to Canunda National Park (camping)

Dec. 29 - Canunda National Park to Coorong National Park (camping)

Dec. 30 - Coorong National Park to Adelaide

Dec. 31 - Adelaide

Jan. 1 - Adelaide

Jan. 2 - Adelaide to Mildura (camping)

Jan. 3 - Mildura (camping)

Jan. 4 - Mildura to Echuca (camping)

Jan. 5 - Echuca to Melbourne

Australian Holiday Dec/Jan 2011

Less than two weeks after our trip we began to get the rain. Several towns along the Murray River were completely flooded. I'm not sure of all the damage that was done but I was very happy we were able to complete our journey with relatively good weather.

December

We went to the city with Flat Stanley:




Lilly had her end of the year concert from Kinder (the pictures came out terrible and I wanted make sure that I was just putting Lilly up here):



I passed my 6 month mark:



We went out somewhere nice for dinner (at the moment I can't even remember where we went):



And Santa came to story time:



I don't even think we took pictures of us opening our Festivus presents! But never fear, we took another holiday at the end of December/beginning of January. I'll get Seth to finish making the album and I'll post that link shortly (hopefully)!