Friday, February 25, 2005

Big Parties

I think I'm too ambitious, sometimes. All the time! Today Atticus turned four weeks old. On Sunday we're having a big party for him - his "Mun Yit". The chinese celebrate the first month of their child's life with a party - "mun yit" is literally "one month". I'm not sure about all the customs that go along with it, though. I think it's 'cause you're not supposed to go out before the kid is that old. I can understand that - it's been bloody difficult sometimes!

But actually, overall he is a pretty good baby. He's not sleeping through the night yet, but he's very easy to settle at night - just wakes for a quick feed and then goes straight back to sleep. The days are another matter! I just can't put him down! Well, I exaggerate. Today he hasn't been too bad. The last couple of days he'd wake and cry every time I tried to lay him down. Even having my folks next door didn't help. My father is a wonder at getting young babies to sleep - and even he was having trouble.

Anyway, I digress. I guess the point was that I'm trying to organise to have this big gathering of family and friends (we're expecting around 70 people) and I can't even get organised enough to go shopping! I look around the house and see the millions of things which need doing - folding/sorting laundry, washing the dishes, getting rid of the ant PLAGUE in the kitchen...

Thursday, February 10, 2005

eBay

We've been using the few fitted cloth nappies that I bought on young Atticus, but since I've only got four we've had to supplement with flat terry nappies and disposables. I discovered that there is quite a market for them on eBay, and have spent a fair chunk of the last two weeks bidding in auctions. It's taken me a while, but I've finally worked out some better bidding tactics... I was bidding on lots of things and not winning a single item! Finally my brother told me that the main tactic is to bid at the last minute. I've been watching auctions since then, and that really is what most people do! Although, I can't believe how carried away some people get - they really want to win the auction, at any price. I mean, I have increased the amount that I'm willing to spend on each nappy now, but that's just after seeing the prices that they are going for: on average $20. I've seen nappies go for almost twice that (but usually not that much more)!

I've also bought some more nappies from the online stores - four came today! It's so exciting receiving parcels in the mail, except that the mailman drops them off so early in the morning. It's not any cheaper buying them from the stores compared to eBay, but at least I'm guaranteed to get them rather than waiting on an auction to finish. I can't wait to wash them and start using them. I would have done so today, but I had already washed all my nappies this morning and didn't want to do another small load. Plus it was pouring rain earlier - just enough to saturate me while I was bringing them in off the line. Of course it's been fine (but overcast) for the rest of the day!

Speaking of days - where did today go? Some days just seem to take forever to pass, but today just whizzed by. I guess sleeping for half of it would probably be the reason!

Anyway, I joined a discussion group, OzClothNappies, yesterday. I had to send an intro to the list moderator before I could be approved and she posted that to the list. There were immediately half a dozen replies from people saying "Welcome" etc. I couldn't believe it! What a friendly bunch of people! I haven't responded yet - I guess I should get onto it, but as I said, I've been spending my time sleeping :-)

My boys

Here's a nice picture of my boys, taken on the 5th February, 2005 (i think).

A New Addition

I've been meaning to update this blog for a few weeks now, but have had some distractions. Actually, one major distraction! I finally had my baby, after waiting so many weeks. I think I've said it before, but I was really expecting him to come early. In the end he came four days before my due date!

On Friday January 28th at 6:05am we welcomed into the world the newest member of our family, Atticus. He was a healthy 3.435kg at birth - I think that's about eight pounds in the imperial system. The labour and birth itself was so different to my first! I endured over 20 hours with Dante and so was expecting this one to be about 10 hours (as I'd been told that the second one is about half the length of the first, usually). Well, I must have been in pre-labour for a while and not really noticed, because I had my first contraction at 2:20am when my waters broke. When I called the hospital at 3:15am my contractions were already less than 10 minutes apart and when we arrived there at 4am they were 2 minutes apart. By that stage I was 4cm dilated. In the end, the official timing of the entire affair, including stage 3, was 2 hours 42 minutes. I was absolutely amazed! And the best part was that I felt really good afterwards - I was walking around a few hours later.

So, he is almost two weeks old now and we are doing pretty well. We are getting some sleep at nights - not a lot, but enough! Atticus is thriving. His "gor-gor", Dante, has been really good, too. We have our moments, but over all he has been really good and quite helpful, sometimes ("really useful", he'd probably say). I wasn't sure what he thought at first, but the teachers at childcare told me the other day that he is initiating conversations and telling people that he has a little brother, "and his name is Atticus". It made me so happy to hear this!

I can't help feeling blessed that I have such a wonderful set of boys. I was sure that I was going to have a girl, but it's good having a son, too! He looks almost exactly like his brother - it's eerie. On some occasions I actually feel like I'm holding Dante, and the last 3 and a half years were just a dream! I can't wait until Atti grows up and the boys can play together, but I also don't want to miss any part of this early stage - he'll never be this small again!