Amanda’s Musings

Look what my lovely hubby bought me after all the sickness of the last few days!

I took some photo of the felt book so far and here it is. So far I’ve cut the pages out and pinned three;

Hopefully I’ll make steady progress!

Apricot blossom from our backyard

Since my last post both Michael and I have had varying versions of the virus that Keziah had all weekend. The last few days have been hard, I’ve had to dig very deep in order to handle the situation and I really do thank the Lord that Lucinda hasn’t caught either Kezi’s bronchitis or the virus. Amongst the trips to the bathroom, the piles and piles of washing and the sleepless nights Luci has been a very easy baby to have. She has slept peacefully most of the time and even went 6 hours between feeds on Sunday night (hasn’t done that since though).

I have even managed to get working on Lucinda’s felt book as I mentioned in a previous post, pinning down three pages already. Haven’t taken any photos of that yet but I will do later.

Its amazing how sickness sets you back so much. I had grand plans to spend the day at carousel shopping centre on Saturday as well as get working on the invitations to Kezi’s birthday party, our SIM display, my Polyclarific display and more over the weekend. I’ve done none of that, instead I’ve washed Keziah’s quilt and bedding at least twice (before wising up and putting her on a smaller mattress with just a mattress protector), our bedding twice and loads and loads of other washing. Oh the joys! Hopefully we can get back to normal in the coming days, whatever ‘normal’ actually is!

Well, what a weekend this has been. I have had very little sleep although last night was a lot better than the previous two nights. This was related more to Keziah than Lucinda. She has had bronchitis for the last week and then on Friday night around 1.30am she started throwing up! We think that she has a virus on top of the bronchitis and the health line people think that her system would be down a bit due to antibiotics hence making her more vulnerable to viruses. Poor little girl.

Usually I do all the night feeds and shifts and Michael will get up with Kezi (and now Luci) around 6-6.30am and let me sleep for a bit longer but on Friday night/Sat morn he had to take care of Lucinda and her feeds while I took care of a chucking up Kezi!! We were both wrecked by Saturday morning. It was all looking on the up until just after bedtime for Kezi last night when she was sick again so we did what we had done the night before and set her up in the lounge room so I could sleep next to her. Michael would have done that shift except that he was preaching this morning so really did need sleep! It all turned out ok because Keziah slept most of the night, wasn’t sick again and I actually got sleep between feeds.

I feel fully initiated into double parenthood now. Looks like I survived. : )

In between all of this I have managed a tiny bit of time snatching and creativity. I think it keeps me sane. Here’s the results from the last three or four days:

Some bitty booties for Lucinda, she only just fits them though!

Various pendants, beads etc… that I’ve made this week and varnished

Varnished a large group of pendants and beads (ready for an upcoming show - stay tuned!)

I have realised that I have a lot on my plate for the rest of the year. Between my SIM responsibilities (newsletter coming out soon, emails, admin and working on our display for upcoming events), Creativity and my shops (I have 2-3 actual physical market stalls before Christmas), Home life (the usual cleaning, kids stuff, feeding Luci etc etc…, buying presents, arranging Kezi’s birthday party for next month etc…) and church life (I’m yet to get as involved as I’d like, I was either away or pregnant for most of our first year at our new church!), I need to be organised. I’m happy though to be no longer pregnant and able to have a reasonably clear brain again, its good to be busy!

Walking around the shops today someone asked me what my baby’s name is. This happens often of course as people always smile and ‘awwwww’ about newborns when out and about. You know you are sleep deprived when you are asked this question and you draw a blank. It probably only took me about 3 seconds to answer her but I looked at little Luci and I just couldn’t remember her name. This has never happened to me before! Poor Lucinda.

Shopping today gave me a few interesting experiences. That was the first of them. The second was walking past a lady pushing a trolley with a 2 yr old in it and the toddler was munching away on….a full sized cucumber!! Both ends had been gnawed away at. I have never seen a child do that before! I wish my child would, I do hope it was a burpless cucumber. : )

The third thing I saw was something that I was say is one of my pet peeves. A very young and distracted Mum walked past me pushing her pram and it was clear that the bub was a newborn. She had the wrap all around the baby’s top half, feet were sticking out the bottom uncovered and she had his bottle propped up letting him ‘feed himself’. This really REALLY annoys me. I just don’t understand how anyone can just let a newborn guzzle away on a bottle without holding them. I see it as dangerous, can’t they stop for 10 minutes and feed their bub. So sorry if you do this and think its ok, just one of my pet peeves.

The last thing I experienced at the shops today was memorable. The shopping centre had set up TV sets around the place and had it set to the olympics. I noticed that a small crowd was forming around the TV so I parked the pram near the group to see what they were watching. It was the women’s swim medley (no idea which one) and Australia was winning. The crowed got quite a bit thicker by the end of the race but strangely enough it was a silent crowd, as if everyone was holding their breath. Then, we won!! It was quite odd as everyone broke out into applause and cheered and then someone at the back yelled out the ol’ ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie!’ slogan. Within about 10 seconds the crowd disbanded and everyone went back to their shopping. It was a nice feeling to share the win with everyone, but so strange at the same time.

Have you had any odd shopping experiences lately? Feel free to share in the comments.

When Keziah was born I made her a few special gifts. Some were hand sewn, some knitted and some were painted. I am determined to do the same thing for Lucinda. I really don’t want her to grow up thinking that I didn’t have time to make her special things. On the top of the list is a hand stitched felt book. In order to see what I mean you have to pay a visit to my old blog. Here are the links:

Keziah’s Felt Book
Malachi’s Felt Book

A page from Malachi’s book

A page from Keziah’s book

The second book I did was for my little nephew Malachi and his had an Aussie theme. I had a great time designing these as I went. Now my plan is to come up with one for Luci and one for Malachi’s little brother (my second nephew) Ty. This will be a work in progress for a little while and I will attempt to do the two at the same time! I did make a start today at last by pulling out my large pieces of felt and seeing what I’ve got. Turns out I’ve got a lot! So here’s the first shot in a long WIP!

I just love bright colours, especially when it comes to kids things so I couldn’t help but take some extra pics of the felt all lined up.

I have no actual plan as to the theme for these two books, usually I just work it out as I go so it will be interesting to see what they turn out like this time.

Ok, if you have more than two kids then I have a question for you. What’s your secret? How do you do it? I now understand what that strange smile meant when I mentioned being tired after having Keziah to those with more than one child. I know what you were thinking and not saying…”ahh, wait until you have more than one…then the fun starts!”. I knew it would be a juggling act but I don’t think I quite knew how many balls there’d be.

Lucinda is not even a month old and I feel as if I’ve been thrown in the deep end. In this last week she has been diagnosed with silent reflux. The sound a baby with reflux makes is not nice, it sounds as if she has some sort of chest infection with a gurgly cough and snuffly nose. Earlier in the week we were getting ready to take her down to the after hours GP as I was sure she was sick when a good friend Jono (who’s a doctor) dropped by and checked her for us. He confirmed that she has reflux (silent = little or no throwing up) not an infection so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Only two days later I was making another Doctor’s appointment as Kezi had develped a cough that was getting worse. Turns out she has bronchitis, which is contagious so my level of stress went up a few more notches as I worried that she’d pass it on to Luci. I’m convinced that its the prayers of those who I let know about this that have stopped this happening.

The other night I sat down at 2am to feed Luci and at the same time Kezi was coughing and spluttering in her room and crying out for me. That’s when I realised that this is what the deep end feels like. Actually, it must just be the ‘middle of the pool’ because the deep end must be reserved for those with more than two kids (you are my new heroes). In the end I had to take Luci with me into Kezi’s room to settle her and just hold her away from Kezi (I have to hold Luci upright for half an hour after each feed because of the reflux). I was out of bed more that night than I was in it and I’m still feeling exhausted two days later. Ok, I expect that I’ll probably feel this way for a few years to come.

Actually, no, don’t tell me the secret, I don’t need to know. I’m quite happy with having two kids, don’t plan on having any more. You can keep your cards held closely to your chest, what I need is someone to teach me to juggle!

Kezi has been going to Kindy Dance classes for three weeks now and she loves it! I decided to buy her a little dancing outfit last week but not wanting to spend a fortune went along to good ol’ Red Dot and found her a sweet little tutu that will suit our purposes. Of course if she does ever take up dancing properly I’ll invest in a proper outfit but this suits our purposes for now. I thinks she looks very sweet in her new outfit, complete with baby legs leggings!

This sweet little dancer got up to mischief (again) yesterday. She was happily playing with her stickers one second and when I looked away for a moment, this is what she did to poor (3 week old) Lucinda:

at least she did it to herself as well, they make a good pair I think:

and so the sisterly playfulness begins!

Just had to share this sweet photo.

Its amazing to me that newborn babies can sleep through anything. Its actually a really good thing because Keziah is a very loud kid! She loves to sing and dance and was entertaining us all with this last night:

The whole time, Lucinda was doing this:

There are however signs that she too will take after her big sister, such as this:

I don’t mind a bit though, they are both gorgeous girls.

Awwwww, isn’t she cute up there on Daddy’s shoulder! Two weeks old at 9.46am tomorrow morning.

Africa got into our blood after spending just one year there in 2000-2001 so its appropriate that our house reflects this. That year was a turning point for us. We both feel that it was at that point that we found where God wanted us for the long term, working in some capacity with overseas missions, specifically with SIM. Now, close to 10 years since our first association with SIM (April 1999) we are still involved and at an even higher capacity than ever before (Michael is the WA Ministry Director). I think that this is why we still have our African memorabilia out, it was a significant watershed moment for us.

As I’ve slowly been regaining my ability to move freely (don’t worry, I haven’t been lifting anything!) as well as losing my pregnancy brain I have been rearranging things in our new house little by little. We decided to go with an African theme for our lounge space and its coming together slowly, although, due to Ikea being short on the specific furniture items we need to make our space livable, its still in temporary mode! Small parts are complete though like these:

Entry table, complete with a beautiful bunch of flowers sent from our SIM office (I realise that my painting is crooked! There’s a mirror behind the table too that will be on the wall at some point).

The wall hanging that my Mum made for me with the African theme. She designed this herself, amazing isn’t it! (the orange is not as bright as the picture shows!)

Some of my own paintings around the place. (also, not as dark as the photo shows, sometime I’ll take a proper photo of that)

The top of the china cabinet

Oh and baby cards!!

Now we just need to finish off the lounge area after a trip to Ikea sometime this week and things will feel more settled. Its so nice to be able to move around without discomfort!!