|
Snow
|
Jan. 6th, 2010 @ 11:35 pm
|
|---|
|
Linnea spent all morning rolled up in her quilt on her bedroom floor. Emer and I got dressed and went out for an hour; she played in the snow and I cleared a bit of a path across two housefronts, and I also for the only time in my life rolled a snowball in more snow to get a HUGE LUMP almost as high as my waist. It shrank a little in the violent effort of levering it up (using two shovels) onto the footpath, but it formed the base of a snowman, once I'd compressed it a little.
Later on people came over to play, and I made rice pudding for lunch, and then Taimatsu came and we went out and I dug more pathway on the footpath, so now it's possible to walk in the clear from number 6 to number 18. It was tougher to dig this evening, because people had walked on it in the meantime and it was also a couple of degrees colder, so it was more like ice.
However, we made a lot more progress on the snowman, too.
Then we all ate dinner and dessert and the children went slowly and late to bed, and we talked about language and spelling and childbirth and the Boleyns and infant mortality and geography and I can't remember what else.
Eventually we let Taimatsu out and she set off walking home. It's nice and bright, and I think there should still be enough soft snow that the walk is ok, not too slippery-lethal.
Tomorrow we get to play Groceries Delivery Roulette. I think it's possible that they'll manage it. |
|
The icon is actually Linnea's scan, which was at 20 weeks or so. But today's scan went well, and the baby held the same pose, cupped hand up to mouth with fingers clearly visible, nose and mouth visible with a careful look. 13 weeks now.
We went to the scan and the technician asked chattily what we were hoping for; I said "A skull." So she first said "there's the skull, and the spine, they're fine," and I was able to look at the screen. She then showed us all the bits of the anatomy - the heart, both sides of the brain, the abdomen, feet and hands. She exclaimed "Oh that's cute!" when the baby sucked its thumb.
Rob feels that the whole thing is more real now and I have alleviated a big worry, which I knew was largely unfounded but still worried about.
Then there was the nonsense about the downs screening. "You want the combined screening?" "No, I want the nuchal fold screening." "OK."
About three people said that, but nonetheless I was directed, after the nuchal fold measurements were taken, to go and get blood drawn. So I did, and then the care assistant said "We need to have your weight."
I said "No, you don't, you just prefer to for your systems."
She had to go up the food chain to find someone who could officially accept that we declined the combined test and only wanted the nuchal fold one. But we managed it, and she understood that our declining the standardised testing was something the system ought to be able to cope with and just didn't because it's so unusual.
It's not the test I object to, though; it's the weighing. They weigh one once and use that measurement. They'd have weighed me at 5 weeks pregnant - only a few days after missing a period - wearing my light shoes, and used that. Or today they'd have weighed me wearing my hiking boots, two layers of winter underwear, many jumpers etc, at 13 weeks pregnant and being significantly larger. They would treat both of those weights as meaning *exactly the same thing* for the test; the forms they send to the lab have no place for "approx weight of clothing" or "week of pregnancy at which weight measured."
Along with all the other things they claim to be able to judge using weight, I find that ridiculous.
And I intend to get to the end of this pregnancy without being weighed. I wasn't weighed either of the other times, because there was no clinical reason to do so and it wasn't policy; I was told at the time that this was because weighing pregnant women can make them restrict their food unnecessarily, which is not desirable. |
|
Snow!
|
Jan. 5th, 2010 @ 10:34 pm
|
|---|
|
Made by the people next door, with hat, eyes, nose and arms from my stash of "I didn't know this was basically a craft material." |
|
They'd be afoot, but it's all about bed.
We have to sell or otherwise dispose of but preferably sell: 2 dressers, 1 chest of drawers with baby-change and high shelves thingy, 1 bed with trundle bed and matching headboard with bookcase and trundle-bookcase (I love this, it's so cute), and quite possibly 1 regular single bed with an ordinary boring wooden frame, and another bookcase, too. Then we can move ALL the other beds in the house around, buy a couple of three-stacking bunkbeds (Argos have some regular bunks with trundle, which are ideal), and continue to have people to stay over and still have enough beds for our actual family, even after the new baby is born.
AND we will still have enough space for everyone to move around in upstairs. More than we have now, in fact. Shocking.
The trouble is that every time we had a bed-related problem, we bought the cheapest possible thing to solve it. So we have a lot of things which tied us into a single arrangement. Now we need to actually plan.
This will also involve laying more laminate flooring. Hurrah. I so loved that last time. (Urgh.)
First: get photographs of everything we want to sell. |
|
Rob has discovered quiche-making and likes it. If we could persuade both children to eat it, we'd be sorted.
Also, I seem to be over the worst of whatever-it-was, either exhaustion making me ill or illness making me exhausted. We went out to Meeting today and then to lunch at a friend's, and then grocery shopping, and now we're home. I've been assembling things to declutter (used jiffy bags, destroyed books for recycling) and trying to figure out what the kids are going to wear to tomorrow's birthday party.
Later, I hope to wet, condition and cut Emer's hair. But I dunno... it's a big ask. |
|
|
Jan. 4th, 2010 @ 12:10 am
|
|---|
|
Welp, it's the fourth already.
After getting back from my dad's on the 26th, carpet was dry, yay.
Went up to Auckland to see ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lyctiger and crashed at his place till day after new years. Drank far too much at foofox's place new years eve and woke up hung over. Bleh.
Giving up caffiene to see what effect it has and I still have a few beers left in the fridge I have to drink, otherwise no more drinking at home.
Lets see how long that lasts :) |
|
|
Jan. 2nd, 2010 @ 06:09 pm
|
|---|
|
Decided to look up the ingredients in pop-tarts. Went to http://www.poptarts.com/ and clicked on "Parents" (as distinct from "Kids") section.
New URL: http://www.poptarts.com/moms/#/section
Yeah.
Sainsbury's website gives the following information for Strawberry Pop Tarts:
Wheat Flour, Glucose Syrup, Dextrose, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Invert Sugar Syrup, Strawberry (7%), Starch, Apple, Salt, Colour (Beetroot Red, Annatto, Curcumin), Raising Agent (Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate, Diphosphates, Calcium Phosphate), Citric Acid, Modified Starch, Tricalcium Phosphate, Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrate), Beef Gelatin, Stabiliser (Xanthan Gum), Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin).
Looks like a nice dessert... possibly a bit sickly sweet compared to, say, meringue. |
|
I actually don't want to go through it. It's all online, anyway, really. But it included some of the best times of my life, and some of the worst by a wide, wide margin, which I think is going some.
I'm looking forward to the next ten years. The next five, even. I enjoyed most of 2009. It was the first time in a long time I wasn't really ill, physically or mentally. I saw a lot of my mother. The children had no instances of major behavioural regression. We went to Sweden by train and ferry.
But 2010 will be better. We'll keep gaining control of our lives. We'll keep doing what's best for us, for our family. We'll learn new things and be kinder to ourselves and each other. And we'll have a new baby.
Last night, at dinnertime, I didn't feel well enough to eat (I was still sick from the stress of having to visit the hospital). Linnea was very worried that if I didn't eat the baby wouldn't be able to grow right.
I ate later. She was very pleased. |
|
Urgh
|
Dec. 31st, 2009 @ 01:21 pm
|
|---|
|
I was SO SICK before going to hospital but only had one not-even-a-real panic attack once I got there. So now I'm STARVING because of losing my breakfast and having more adrenaline than um someone very full of adrenaline, all leaving my system at once.
Luckily, Rob is cooking lunch. |
|
I saw the obstetrician today, with my midwife, and then came home and had a normal antenatal appointment, and everything is fine. I'm just past 12 weeks pregnant and the new baby is due in mid-July-ish.
The best news is that the Original Obstetrician no longer works at that hospital so I won't see him any more. Ever. That makes a really big difference. |
|
Last year and the year before we brought Linnea ice-skating on the temporary rink at the Oracle shopping centre. This year Emer was big enough too, so we all headed off today.
Different company; no ice. Fake ice, also known colloquially as I Can't Believe It's Not Lino, is pretty much impossible to skate on, though one can slide about a bit. Emer had a good time, never having been on ice before, and Linnea had a reasonably good time, but Rob and I were very glad we got a special offer price and hadn't paid full whack. We have decided to seek out a real ice-rink for Emer soon when Rob is next off work, because that was ridiculous.
If we'd gone last week the fake ice would have been covered in real ice and we'd have been fine!
Still, it's nice to have a plan. Hope I don't break anything this time. I have several times visited ice rinks and not broken anything, after all... |
|
We watched The Gruffalo twice and loved it. It had a LOT of things-eating-things in every scene, I think, mainly as background. But the children didn't mind that (not like the penguins documentary which upset Linnea terrible and we had to stop watching after a mother penguin was eaten by a seal and some babies froze to death on the ice). |
|
Emer woke at her usual time, and didn't seem excited in the least until I said "Do you know what day it is?"
TISSMASS!
She got very excited about presents and so Rob, Emer and I went downstairs. We did all try to wake Linnea but she wasn't having any (Linnea doesn't like waking up). So Emer opened her stocking and was hugely delighted by everything in it. Then when Linnea came down Emer was hugely delighted by everything Linnea got, too.
Rob and I opened our stockings and the children were very excited all over again.
Then they played with their toys and I fell asleep. Rob started dinner in a slightly off-schedule manner and woke me to ask for help, and I rejigged the timetable and helped a bit, and we ate about an hour late in the end. Then we went for a walk and came home and opened presents.
Emer didn't really mind who the presents were for, as long as they were exciting and got opened.
I slept again after presents. Then I went to bed slightly before the children and slept some more.
I turned my laptop off before lunch and left it off until this afternoon, which was nice. I also didn't touch my phone until yesterday evening, St Stephen's Day. This was a Good Idea and a Great Thing.
We were going to go ice-skating today but didn't. We might go tomorrow. |
|
Clean children, clean rooms, lots of lovely food.
Tonight's meal:
Cold ham, reindeer salami, hardboiled eggs
Hard sheep cheese, feta, mature cheddar (for Rob), sliced pickles
Potato salad, beetroot salad, pickled herring
Bread and butter
Meatballs, cocktail sausages, green beans, peas, steamed potatoes
Rice pudding and fruit salad
Pepperkakor |
|
