Make It Perfect

…but this place of restful slumber has been calling my name for the last week!
We have been VERY spoiled with Aunty Carli and cousins staying at Gramma’s house down the road for the last 7 days. Lil goes to bed for her 2 hour nap every day at lunch time, Oscar has had a constant play-mate and has been very well entertained and amused and lucky me gets to snuggle down in bed and catch up on on sleep lost from the night before! They have just left to go home on the aeroplaine back to Sydney now and Oscar isn’t the only one who is crying! It has been fun to have them around to see Tommy during his first days of life and so nice that I haven’t had to feel like I need to take the kids out of the house (except to Mum’s) for entertainment yet.

Life with three children is going “so far, so good” – I can tell the older two are suffering a little bit though. More tantrums and breakdowns than usual, but nothing too bad yet. It must be difficult for older siblings (especially when they are both really young) to adjust to the new dynamics a baby brings. Less time for them with Mum and Dad. Learning to wait their turn while the baby is being fed, changed, bathed. I’m sure that in a couple of weeks everything will feel normal for them.

Tommy is a dream really. We had a few unsettled nights with him when I first came home from the hospital. My milk still wasn’t in and he was HUNGRY! We resorted to this:and it worked a treat. Oscar and Lil were both dummy babies (Lil still is!) We thought we might try and go dummy-less this time around, but he just wanted to suck and suck and I wasn’t up for it! I always have that momentary feeling of guilt as I stick the big plastic teat into their mouth, but once it starts providing us both relief I soon get over it!
Jaron went back to work this week, a sad moment for me. It was so nice to have my sidekick around all last week to pick up all the slack! He is my lifesaver! The working day goes for sooo long – especially in winter time when it is too cold to venture outside for long. We have been extremely blessed to have sisters at Church assigned to bring us a weeks worth of dinners though, it has made each day this week soo much easier – I think I am going to forget how to cook after not having to do it for so long!
For the first time in my breastfeeding days I have found it easy! We had the usual, expected pain in the beginning but it only lasted 1 week this time. We must be doing something right because Tommy is going 3-4 hours between feeds and is generally pretty settled. I know things can change quickly though so am making the most of it while it lasts!

I better go get the big kids showered. I’ve been writing this post in dribs and drabs all afternoon so you can blame baby brain if it doesn’ make sense…just wanted to record whats been going on in the mad house for posterity before I forget! Oh, and I have an inbox full of emails I need to reply to so don’t think I’m snobbing you if I haven’t said hello yet…I’ll get there soon!

We were lucky to have a visit by the extremely talented Fiona Harding yesterday afternoon…she came over to take some photos of little Tommy in his perfect, sleepy, newborn state.
I can’t stop looking at them! She is going to be slowly uploading more to her blog as she finishes her tedious job of editing so keep a look out for new photos over the next few days. She was such a joy to work with – if you live in Northern Tasmania and are looking for a brilliant photographer…make sure you get in contact with Fiona, her work is stunning!

We did it! Baby delivered. Home – safe and sound. I can’t believe it is all over and done with so quickly. I thought my first two labours were straightforward, but this one definitely tops the lot!

Monday was a public holiday, so Jaron was home from work for the day. We didn’t have many plans for the day, Jaron took the kids for a bike ride and play at the park in the morning while I visited the quilt shop to pick up some fabric to start working on a new pattern (in anticipation that the baby wouldn’t be born until Friday too keep me occupied for the rest of the week!). I did a bit of sewing (the pattern is now “on hold” for a few weeks!!) and then we went to Anvers for a hot chocolate and play for afternoon tea.
At around 6pm as we were sitting down for dinner, I started to have a few contractions that were stronger than the ones I had been having over the last few days and just felt a bit different. We carried on with dinner and Family Home Evening and the contractions were getting regular – around 6 minutes apart and starting to feel painful. I went into clean-up mode and got lots of washing folded, tidied the house, sorted a few things out, etc. It was about 7:15pm when we were playing Hide-And-Seek and I was hiding in the cupboard (not a good move for a heavily pregnant woman starting labour, but they didn’t find me for ages!) when I had a really strong contraction and yelled out to Jaron that we should probably get the kids settled and into bed NOW!!
At 7:45pm Mum came around and we quickly left for the hospital. I was starting to feel a bit panicky now as I could feel the contractions were getting much stronger very quickly than they had in the past and was worried that we wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time! The 10 minute drive to the hospital seemed to take forever and I was anxiously (nice way to put it!) telling Jaron to stop driving so jerkily and speed up! Lucky we didn’t have far to drive to the hospital (with Oscar and Lil it was a 45 minute drive away) because it would have been a really close call!
We got into the hospital just after 8pm, the midwives were going to put me in a room to monitor me for awhile, and I looked at one of them and said “if this isn’t the room where you want me to have the baby then I’m not going to sit down or get comfortable because I can tell this baby is going to come really soon.” I must have looked convincing because they quickly rushed me into the delivery room and we settled in there. The rest is a bit of a blur really, a few contractions and a bit of gas later I was ready to push and only had to push for 5 minutes then little Tommy arrived! As soon as he was put on my chest, Jaron and I both kept saying how tiny he was. He looks so much like Oscar did when he was a baby (but with a more prominent nose!) but is SO mini. Osc and Lil were both 7lb 7oz and 7lb 9oz so it was a huge shock to have such a small one this time. He is really long and skinny with huge feet and toes.
I don’t know if it is still the adrenaline kicking in or not, but I am feeling really good (all things considered!) so far. I’m tired and have that weird “new baby to look after and find a place for in this family” feeling but I don’t feel really knocked around like I have been hit by a truck! I’m sure that not labouring for a long time and not having to miss out on any sleep being in labour through the night makes a lot of difference.

I had to share a room with three other women and their babies while we were in hospital – two of the babies cried non-stop all night. I felt bad for their Mum’s, but while my baby slept peacefully all night long it was enough to encourage me to get home into my own comfortable bed and quite (kind of) house as quickly as possible!
Tommy has been an absolute gem so far (I keep reminding myself it hasn’t even been 48 hours!) he is very sleepy and has only cried for about 10 minutes. I have had to wake him for all of his feeds and nappy changes, lets hope that we get a few more days of sleepy-baby before real life settles in!

Monday night is Family Home Evening (FHE) for members of our Church.
Being a very young family, our FHE usually goes along the following lines:

1. Opening prayer
2. Song
3. Lesson (short and sweet…Oscar is old enough now to “get” a lesson, usually we think of something that we want him and Lil to learn about…i.e. obedience…and have a quick discussion about what it means, maybe find a story to act out to go along with it.)
4. Game (at the moment “Hide-And-Seek” is a highly requested favourite)
5. Treat
6. Closing/Bedtime Prayer
I think Oscar asks me EVERY single day if tonight is Family Night. He LOVES it! He is at a great age as he thinks everything we do is fun (even if it seems like a lame throw-together-at-the-last-minute thing) and his little mind really is like a sponge, soaking up everything we talk about.
Recently I did some internet surfing looking for FHE ideas for families with toddlers and came across some very clever Mums who have put together Family Home Evening blogs. They are so helpful, have great lesson and activity ideas for all ages and are brilliant for sharing with us! I have already used a few ideas from some of the blogs and it is great having them share their resources, printables and links all in the one spot. Really helps that “oh no, I’ve left FHE to the last minute again” panic!!
Seeing as they are have been so helpful to me, I thought I should share them with you also…here they are! Let me know if you come across any other good FHE sites or blogs…

The Family Home Evening Spot

Family Home Evening

FHE – A Bit of Heaven at Home

FHE Planner

FHE In A Snap

(And if you aren’t a member of our church, but you think Family Home Evening sounds like it could work in your house, feel free to join in however it may suit you! You can find out more about the official FHE program here.)