narrating kayoz

Belly shot (and more)

So I thought I'd better share at least one belly shot, having blogged about having them done... 

And then a gratuitous kid shot, also by Trish, just because I love it:

Having some belly photos taken

I have just spent a lovely Sunday morning at Regatta Point with Chris and the kids, and the delightful Trish. She brought along her fabulous camera and took lots of photos of my belly. Oh and the rest of me, and the kids, and even Chris got into some of them.

I don't really like having my photo taken, but I do like to look at the results after wards. Especially of the kids. I know Trish got a few good ones, because she showed me on the camera. She even managed to get Liam to look natural (he likes to pose, y'see, but it doesn't always make for the most attractive of shots!). But I can't wait to see them all. Or at least, the ones she considers good enough to show me. The nice thing about someone else photographing you is that they can delete the ugly ones without you ever having to see them!

I didn't get any particularly good belly photos with either of the other pregnancies, and to be honest, I did hesitate when Trish offered to do some this time. But this is my last pregnancy, and - I'm glad I said yes. Actually it was a lot of fun - Regatta Point was Trish's suggestion and it was an excellent one. The kids had a ball, playing on the various playgrounds, feeding the ducks & swans, finding 'secret' spots in the bushes and under willow trees. We are so lucky to live in Canberra, we should really make the most of it and get out more often.

What an unreliable thing is memory (and a little bit of pre-labour cramping)

I have just been looking at Mikaela's birth story posts (1 & 2), to check on something, and discovered how completely unreliable my memory is. For instance, I wasn't having contractions about 15 minutes apart from when my waters broke, it was 8 minutes.

And I didn't only have 3 contractions between 8 & 9 in the morning, right before I called the midwife and told her I was not really in established labour yet, I was still (or back to) having them 8 minutes apart  - though it is true that some were still very mild at that point.

And second stage wasn't 10 minutes, it was 20.

Funny, the stories we tell ourselves and then believe. That's what I love about keeping written records. Much more reliable!

What I was reading it to figure out is how long before I went into labour was the night where I had contractions for two hours - turns out it was only the night before. But I also (re)discovered that I'd been having contractions on and off all week, which I'd completely forgotten.

The reason I was wondering was that I had two hours of mild cramping in the middle of the night last night. It was like early period cramping, which is exactly how I remember early labour, except that this was moreorless constant, not coming in waves like contractions do.

It was mostly annoying because uncomfortable and keeping me awake, and slightly worrying because I'm not 37 weeks until Monday, which means if something happens before then I will have to 'go upstairs' (ie can't give birth in the birth centre) even though I'm sure 2 days one way or the other wouldn't make that much difference. But also a little exciting, because even though we're not really ready - I sort of am, too.

Grrr... car seat frustration!

Chris has been off trying more car seats in the car today.

Our options appear to be:

• Buy new car seats for Liam (a narrower booster) and the baby (a compact reversible), and have Liam behind the driver, the baby in the middle and Mikaela behind the passenger seat, AND have to do up the seat belt on Liam's booster ourselves, because Chris is pretty sure he won't be able to reach (and in any other positions Chris reckoned no-one will be able to do up Liam's seatbelt); or

• Buy all three of them new car seats, getting Mikaela a narrow convertible carseat/booster.

And either way, Chris isn't entirely happy with the options he's looking at for either of the big kids in terms of comfort - but he doesn't have them with him today, so they haven't tried them out themselves.

Grrrr. I really do NOT want to have to put the baby in the middle of the car, and I definitely do not want to have to be doing up Liam's seat belt as well as the other two (and he would not like that either, not one bit). But nor am I keen on buying 3 new seats, especially considering that we love Mikaela's and so does she. Legally, of course, we won't have to have Liam in a booster seat past his birthday next month, but given his weight and height, safety dictates having him in one for probably two more years.

Sigh.

And to think we bought this car specifically because we can fit three seats across it (we couldn't in the old car). The only bigger option would pretty much be a people mover.

School's back, life's good, things are progressing.

This has been a hectic yet fun week.

School started back, and at Orana they always have 'parent cafe' every morning in the first week of school. It's in one of the old kindergarten classrooms/playgrounds, which is also where they have the playgroups from the second week on, and a cafe/craft morning on Fridays (which of course I've never been able to go to regularly because of working Fridays). So Mikaela and I dropped off Liam at his class* on Tuesday & Wednesday, then spent the rest of the mornings hanging out with other parents and younger siblings.

One of the younger siblings was a 7 month old baby, who's brother just moved to the school this year and is in Liam's class. The baby is commando crawling and used to big kids (with brothers aged 7 and 5), so he managed very well with Mikaela's desire to turn him into her personal pet. And she made a new best friend. And a couple of parents commented on how good she was with him (not like with our poor long suffering cat), so that bodes well.

Aside from that we stayed after school for plays on both days until 3:30 or 4:00pm, and on Wednesday we had Mikaela's swimming lesson straight after parent cafe and then met some friends at the pool, so didn't even make it home until 1/2 an hour before we had to leave for school pickup. Like I said, somewhat hectic, but fun.

Then Thursday Chris did the school run and took Mikaela to parent cafe (she was sad that the baby wasn't there that day), while I went and had a lovely session with my doula, talking about the birth and possible positions - I'd really like to catch the baby this time if I can, and would also really like to avoid a tear - though with scar tissue from two tears in the same spot, that's probably not likely.

I also talked about the fact that I'd like to get to the birth centre a little earlier this time (ie not right as I hit transition!), so I have more time to get into the 'zone'. The tricky part being that my labour barely got established last time before we went in - if I'd waited until I had contractions five minutes apart, like they tell you to, Mikaela would have been born at home. So I'm not quite sure how I'm going to judge that. My doula said she normally does a flow chart for her clients to help them figure out when to call, but I just don't fit the patterns. But anyway...

And then she did a guided relaxation with me and a Reiki session. Yes, I love my doula. :)

Sadly I had to follow that lovely relaxing appointment with a blood test (for iron studies since my stored iron was once again at rock bottom when it was last tested), then get home in time for Chris to go to a physio session. Then we all went to school to help with 'handwork', in Liam's class (they are starting the year by making cushions to sit on - beginning, his week, with painting the fabric), then picked up Liam and went to my cousin's for an after school play.

But today. Well, it hasn't been entirely relaxed, but I at least haven't left the house. I have cleaned out the bassinette, made it up, and set it up in our bedroom though, which is a major achievement. And Chris took Liam to check out new booster seats, since his is too wide to fit in the car with another baby seat.

Unfortunately that trip established that

a) the seat Chris was thinking of for him is too narrow - absolutely no growing room;

b) the next choice might be okay (similar over all width but more roomy in the important places), but was not in stock, and

c) it will be impossible to do the seat belt up on either one if we get a full size seat for the baby - even of the narrower kind we were looking at. We will have to get a compact one. Which is a particular bummer because as of yesterday we thought we wouldn't have to buy one at all, since my cousin's eldest is about to graduate to a booster seat and was going to give us hers. Also, the compact one we think we want wasn't in stock either.

But at least we have a better idea now. I just hope we are able to get them before the baby is actually born!

And now it's time to sort through Mikaela's last year or so of clothes and either pack them away or put them in the op shop box, therefore making room to get out the baby clothes (assuming we can find them!) tomorrow. Yes, we are making progress on my list of 'things to be done before 37 weeks', which is just as well, because 37 weeks is on Monday. 

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*This is not what this post is about, but Liam is also very happy to be back at school. The holidays were just long enough that he was really hanging out for school by the last week. but it's not really terribly exciting aside from that, since it's the same class, same teacher, and they moved into the class two room in the last week of last year. So no sudden shocks, and none of those beginning of year fears that I remember about which teacher you would have and whether you would still be in the same class as your best friends.

The impending reality of a baby, the bittersweet end of a pregnancy

I wrote in my (new — more on that another time) paper journal recently that:

"I still find it hard to believe in the baby, or not so much in the baby itself, but in the reality of transitioning from having my own, private, intimate connection with this little, wriggly being inside me, to having an outside baby, who everyone wants a piece of and who is no longer safe and sound and protected and fed, just by me breathing and eating and taking reasonable care; who needs to be held, nursed, rocked to sleep, have nappy changes — who, in short needs my hands, arms a-doin' for to look after her or him. That reality is hard to fully comprehend.

I know it's coming, and in many ways I'm excited about it. But it's daunting too — to be tied down by a newborn's needs, while still trying to meet Mikaela and Liam's needs."

This was a couple of weeks ago, before I'd seen Vickie, our doula, at all. Since then I've started to focus more on the coming labour and birth, and so in a way, the reality of an outside baby has become even more unfocused. I'm focusing on the baby's birthday, and barely thinking beyond that.

But I also wrote this:

"And, there's also a sense of loss — of having to open and share something which has been profoundly private and intimate, just the baby and me. And I think I probably know more about this now than I did the first time around, the way the intimate connection stretches out more and more as they grow into independence. It's something I remember finding very sad when Liam was a baby, the fact that I loved him so much and felt that at that point we were still so closely connected, but that as he grows he simply won't remember the intensity of that bond.

I don't think I thought about things in those terms during my actual pregnancy with Liam, but now I see that the moment of birth is the beginning of the stretching.

Of course it's a lovely beginning (bring on those endorphins!) and a long process, and one that is right and good. But sad, all the same, in it's own way. The very definition of bittersweet."

And this sense, of the bittersweet loss of the intimacy of pregnancy that giving birth inevitably involves, is still with me. I tell people the sooner the baby comes out the better - at least once I get to the 'safe' point of 37 weeks, which is less than a week away now(!). And yes, I am uncomfortable (actually in pain a lot of the time in fact), tired, breathless, and oh so awkward. And then too I really am very excited about giving birth again. It's a cliché, but true all the same, that giving birth is the most amazing, wonderful thing. Or can be anyway.

Also, while the opening of the bond, the sharing of the baby, does entail the stretching of something that is so closed and close now, that sharing is also exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing how Mikaela finds having a baby sibling, and how Liam finds it the second time around. And I'm particularly looking forward to sharing the baby more directly with Chris.

So in many ways I am quite focused on the coming birth, and ready for this little one to be out pretty soon. But I am also very aware that this is the last time I'll ever do this, that once this baby is out I will never have quite this connection with another human being again. And so in truth — at least at some moments of the day — I'm quite content for these last few weeks to be just that: a few, not just one or two. And I hope that I can take them slowly, and appreciate the moments for themselves.

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(36 weeks yesterday)

Helpful Mikaela

I just asked Mikaela to put her swimmers on, and make sure she put her clothes into a  green bag so she'd have a change for after. She disappeared off to her bedroom with the bag, I assumed with her swimmers in it. She came back still in the same clothes, but the bag had four clean shirts in it (a mix of summer and winter) and some socks (3). "I got some socks!" she said.

What I have been doing lately (plus some other comments)

Grrr... just wrote half a post and lost it when Firefox crashed. We *really* need to do something about this computer.

Anyway, I was writing a post in dot points...

• I love that poem/short story by Jamaica Kincaid, 'What I have been doing lately'. I'm pretty sure it's from At the Bottom of the River,  But I gave the book away before I moved back to Australia after studying it in America years ago. Damn it.
   
• In less than 2 weeks this baby could be born any time and be considered 'full term' (ie I will be 37 weeks pregnant). I'm hoping to have everything on my very long list done by then, and then have a week (or more?) to rest on my laurels.* But we'll see...
   
• Liam & I have started reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe this week. Or more accurately, I've started reading it to him. It's really fun to read.
  
  Most nights we have about a half hour of reading together in the living room, while Mikaela reads with Chris and goes to sleep in their bedroom, then Liam has another half hour (or so) reading on his own in bed. And often what he does is reads ahead in whatever book we are reading together, but because he is still mostly reading by word recognition, his comprehension can be limited, depending on the book, so he's happy for me to re-read it to him the next night (or him to read it to me, with help on some words, depending on the book and on how he feels).
  
  But because I'm mean, I'm not letting him take the Narnia books to bed. I'm insisting on reading them all myself. Partly that's because it's been close to two decades since I read them and so I don't remember just how scary they might get, partly it's because with the old-fashioned language I know he'll have a harder time reading it to himself, and partly it's just because I want to enjoy being with him when he hears the stories for the first time.
  
  I am finding the language - the long sentences, and very English way of talking - to be really fun to read aloud, and quite refreshing after some of the modern kids books we've been reading.
   
• What I am not reading any more of to Liam is the Zac Power books. I am sick to death of them. Zac is, quite frankly, annoying, they are completely unrealistic (in a way that is somehow different to the Magic Treehouse books or the Narnia stories being unrealistic). But more than that, I don't like the values they are promoting. Zac is always going on about his 'geeky' or 'nerdy' big brother Leon, using those as negative terms ('Even the geeky Leon could do that', or 'isn't scared of that', or whatever); Zac is never scared of anything, even when he plainly should be (so he's a twit, but instead he's written as a hero); and the only female characters I've come across so far either turn out to be working for the baddies, or are his mother (who is also a spy, but you certainly wouldn't know it).
  
  People talk about them as 'early readers', there is even a set of four or five of them (the Test Drive books) which have larger print & are shorter - and, from memory, generally less obnoxious - but that just gets the kids in of course. And really, I think they are probably better for an older age group - after all Zac is 12. But given that Liam only just started reading & writing at school last year, at the age of 7, and he can read them now, I figure kids who go to mainstream schools and start the three Rs at 5 must be reading them by now, or earlier, too. Certainly a few of his friends are (though not his school friends, that I know of). Either way, I don't like them.
  
  Liam just borrowed five more of these books from a friend (who I think, I am sorry to say, first came to them when Liam bought him one for his birthday last year), and I've said he can read them to himself, but I'm not reading them to him. I explained some of why I don't like them, but I don't think I did a very good job of it.
   
• We have had two 'dinner parties' with friend in the past week. This is unheard of behaviour for us! On Friday we had dinner at my lovely friend Simone's house, and didn't get home until after 11. I don't actually think we've done that since we've had kids (unless you count weddings). Another couple were there as well, with their two children, so there were friends for all ages and the kids had as much fun as we did.
  
  Then last night we had another family over for a more casual pizza dinner (home made though!), but again the kids got to run wild while we chatted until about nine o'clock at night. As a consequence Mikaela is already over-tired now at 10:30 in the morning, so I hate to think what the witching hour will be like tonight! But it's all good.
   
• We finally went to see our lovely doula last week, and she lent me Ina May Gaskin's Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, which I had not read before, as a general refresher. It's a wonderful book.
  
  I am really looking forward to the birth. Not without some apprehension - because you just never know how it will be - but with a reasonably amount of confidence & plenty of excitement. I do hope to get to the birth centre a little earlier this time (having arrived pretty much already in transition last time), so that I have some time to get into the calm birth/hypnobirthing 'zone' - it's hard to relax and let go when you arrive so late. Most of the labour at home was okay that way, but of course with Liam here and me worrying about Chris changing the sheets before we left... Yeah, not exactly right out of the neo-cortex (ie rational) part of my brain.
  
  On the other hand, I'm realising that some more time to relax once my list is complete wouldn't be a bad thing. Liam is back at school next week, and while my mum is away that week, the following Friday she's agreed to take Mikaela for the whole day (moreoreless) so Chris and I can take the whole of Liam's school day to be a 'date' day - do to a movie, have lunch etc. And if the baby could hold out another week past that, we could do it all over again the next Friday! If I give birth as early with this one as I did with the other two then we'd be home from the birth centre with a new baby by that time, but then again, every birth is different, as I keep being told! :)

I had more to say about my doula, who is also a reiki practitioner and did a lovely relaxation session with me (visualisations plus reiki) on Sunday, but I gotta go. We leave for Mikaela's swimming lesson soon (which she is still loving), so I better go get those children organised.

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*What does that mean, to rest on one's laurels? I mean, where does it come from? Must google it later...

Bad parents (that'd be us)!

Poor Mikaela just wet the bed because we (again) forgot to put a night-time nappy on her. Poor little mite. Amazingly the kerfuffle (she was crying) didn't disturb Liam at all.

Swimming the cure for shyness? (not really, but it can't hurt)

My shy little Mikaela seems to be coming out of herself a little. She's not going to stop being shy (I shouldn't think) - if I hadn't lived through these same years with a little extrovert I might believe all the people who say it's just developmental, but I have, and I don't.

But, she is starting to talk to more to people.

Last term she started swimming lessons. And they were a complete flop. In fact she wouldn't even look at the teacher, who was a young man, much less join in with the lesson. It didn't help that it was the first time he'd taught her age group and she was often the only kid in the class. So after a couple of lessons they let us defer, and they suggested that sometimes the teachers who are also mothers do better with kids like her.

I figured going every day to see the same teacher and class might work better, so we enrolled her in the two week summer intensive programme, with a mother-teacher named Tracey.

On the first day, Kaely did almost none of the class. I went in with her (none of the other parents did, although there was another little girl there who'd never had lessons before), and she did a few things with me. At the very end of the class she did a couple of things with Tracey. But, she was perfectly happy to look and even smile at Tracey right from the start, even though she wouldn't speak to her. But Tracey handled all this fine, not making a fuss, just asking her if she would have a go, for each activity.

Well, the next day was much the same, but Wednesday was a little better and then Thursday was the breakthrough day. She did almost everything, including the high five with Tracey at the end. By the end of the second week she was talking to Tracey, and even to a student teacher who did a few classes with them that week, and doing everything she was asked to do.

So we've enrolled her in a Wednesday class for this term, with the same teacher and at the same level. I'm confident that by the time I have to bring the baby along (ie when Chris goes back to work 6-8 weeks after the baby is born), I won't need to go in with Mikaela at all anymore. And both this morning and yesterday morning one of the first things Mikaela has said to me is "Is it Wednesday yet?", very disappointed to hear that it's not.

But the point of all this is not that she's taken to swimming like a duck to - well, you know. In fact she already loved the water, Chris has been taking her swimming most every week during Liam's classes for a couple of years (or more).

The point is that in the past two weeks she's also started talking to other people. Chris told me that yesterday he was at a checkout at the supermarket with her in the trolley, and she suddenly piped up and told the cashier that she was three. And that Liam was her brother. She *never* does stuff like that.

And two weeks ago (in the first week of swimming) we went for a play-date at one of Liam's friend's houses, and his mother said it's the first time she'd heard Mikaela speak. That's not so surprising, because she normally sees us at school pick-up when Mikaela is either just waking up from a sleep in the car, or busy playing in the sandpit. But what was surprising to me is that she started chatting to this woman almost the moment we go into her house. Then last week we were there again and the child's dad came home, and Mikaela even talked to him! I was astounded I tell you.

Now I'm not really suggesting that the two weeks of swimming classes have had this miraculous effect, I suspect it's more likely that she's at a developmental point where she was ready for both - though I doubt that we would have had the same success with the swimming had we kept with last term's teacher and the weekly classes.

But I am very pleased that it's all going so well. This year we have also enrolled her in a playgroup at the school for the first time, where she will hopefully meet some of the children she'll be in kinder with next year. The main reason I'm keeping the swimming lessons going is to help her get used to the class situation, and interacting with the teacher. I'm not honestly that fussed about the actual swimming skills at this age, though obviously learning basic safety stuff (how to float, dog paddle, get out if she falls in), is valuable. 

Although funnily enough, once she did join in with the class, her skills proved to already be reasonably good, although she's still not too happy about putting her face into the water. I guess all the swimming with Chris has paid off in that sense. Now I'm hoping that the classes and playgroup will pay off such that when she starts sessional-kindergarten (pre-school) next year, she'll be happy for me to leave her there. If not as happy as Liam was,* then at least not horrified by the idea.

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*Weirdly I don't appear to have blogged this at the time, but on Liam's first day of school, Chris and I waited around at the top of the playground (where the class rooms are) until 'going in' time (they have about 15-20 minutes outdoor play before they go in). When that time came, Liam came racing up to change into his indoor shoes, and rushed past us saying "What are you guys still doing here?" - and went in without a backward glance!