Pure White

It suddenly dawned on us last night that we are expecting another child! Which means we need to get things organised and look at names and things like that. It’s not that it hasn’t seemed real to us, but we hadn’t thought much beyond the birth (and to be honest, we’ve barely thought about that). I’m getting more and more excited about the labour and birth. I’m really looking forward to it.

For the last month or so, I’ve been having a lot of hip and back pain. It has eased up a bit with chiropractor visits and increased hydration, but the last few days it has returned as painful as ever. I still look very small, measuring quite a bit less than I should be. Looking through Nathan’s records though, and the same happened in my pregnancy last time. I’m looking about 30 weeks at the moment, rather than nearly 35. My fluid volume is on the lower side of normal, so I’m feeling lots of limbs and bony bits. 🙂 This baby definitely seems to roll more than it does kick and jab though. It feels slightly more gentle. Tim thinks that’s an indication that it’s a girl.

I am having to slow down a bit and take things easier now. Study has been fairly difficult to stay on top of, I’m really only getting Nathan’s nap times to do it. I’ve been so tired the last few weeks that I’m in bed pretty much as soon as he is.

We’ve been doing a fairly good job of staying on top of things like our dinner plans and bible reading. A few months ago, we wrote a huge list of things we wanted to change and implement, and now when we look at it, it feels like a silly list. Just because we have introduced so much change that it just feels natural. There is progress, and I do believe our family is benefiting from it. We are moving forward!

Nathan and I have been having lots of adventures this week, cooking, playing on the trains at the park, shopping. It’s amazing to watch him grow up.

We were out getting some supplies for me to start sewing (things like scissors and thread) and Nathan kept wanting to touch all of the buttons, so I sat him down against a pole and asked him to stay there, and he sat quietly watching us for about fifteen minutes. The ladies at the shop were very impressed. He just blows me away time and time again with how well behaved and kind he is.

While playing at the park the other day, there was a little girl sitting on her own watching the other kids play, and Nathan went and plonked himself beside her, gave her a smile and just sat with her for a few minutes. It was incredible cute.

His cleaning obsession is working out fantastically well for us too. Every night before bed, he puts his toys in the right shelf and his books all neatly away. It really bugs him to have anything out of place. We sat on the couch the other night and he cleaned up the whole lounge room by himself. 🙂 I know, slave labour with a 22 month old right? But he has become such a capable little boy.

We made banana choc chip muffins the other day, and he stood on a chair, and poured all the ingredients in, mashed the banana with a fork and stirred all the ingredients through. He can get all the parts of his breakfast out and on the table now, weetbix, milk, bowl and spoon, buckles himself into his chair and waits for someone to put it all together for him.

He is constantly asking for more independence and I am feeling so confident in giving him more responsibility. It blows me away how much he can do, and how well behaved he is for a nearly two year old.

No matter how hard we try, the universe seems to be conspiring against us in our efforts to slow down our pace of life. The last fortnight has been a hectic one. Appointments, meetings and church events/stuff, cleaning our rental property, has seen us make trips to Toowoomba, often more than one a day, six days a week. The lease on our last rental house finishes up on Tuesday, so hopefully after that we won’t be needing to do stuff to sort out the two houses again.

Our new place in Grantham is shaping up quite nicely. We’ve made a very conscious effort to downsize and the resulting space has been quite enjoyable. This house is much smaller than the last one, though we aren’t sharing anymore. I have been having fun making each room nice and part of a home. Having a downstairs area is great for that because anything that I don’t want in right now has gone down there. The kids room was the first to take shape. We moved Nathan’s cot and change table in, and that was all. As we have no built in cupboards in this house, we really needed more storage space, so I had my eye on the expedit shelving at Ikea. We priced the wood it would take for us to build them at Bunnings, and then had a look at Ikea and for the time and effort it would take, plus the end result, it ended up being easier to buy them new. For my birthday mum gave me the money to go get them. A 2mm dent in one of the corners (that is absolutely not noticeable) pulled the price down over $100 and we got to bring it home! I’m planning on making some fabric boxes to slot in, so their clothes, books and everything will be in that unit.

With the left over money we bought the supplies needed to build Nathan a new toddler bed. It’s close to the ground, and fits the same mattress as his cot. He moved into it a week or so ago, and we haven’t had any worries at all. He is quite proud of it, and I loved the feeling of building something together as a family that will stick around for a while. I love looking at it and thinking, ‘I made that bed!’ The cost came out at about $70, but there is enough fabric, batting and possibly wood to make another which I am considering doing for Grammy’s house. That was my birthday present from Tim, actually getting that done. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while.

One of the goals we have had for this year was actually celebrating events. We have always been quite bad at it, hence we are coming up to our third anniversary and never done a thing. This year, we have become more intentional about it. We had a picnic lunch at Spring Bluff for Australia day, and for Valentines Day Nathan had a sleepover at his grandparents and we grabbed some noodlebox, baked brownies and watched a movie.

Doing something for my birthday felt like more of a challenge though. 21 is a big one, but I really didn’t want it to be. So we had a BBQ at our place downstairs as a joint housewarming. The turn out was better than I expected, even though Tim smoked the place out trying to burn some trees that had blown down a week previously. Daddy made me some damper which was absolutely brilliant!! It’s just good to hang out with friends, new ones and old, some of whom I haven’t seen for quite some time. I got a sewing machine for my birthday too from Tim’s family, which I am super stoked with. I’ve sat down and read through the entire manual, which was extraordinarily funny. Then again we were probably just both really tired.

Uni is starting up again for Tim this week, I started back about a month ago. He is still full time, I have dropped to part time, and am really enjoying the break from clinical. The baby will arrive within two months, and although that still feels like ages, I’m starting to see the weeks roll before my eyes. Time will fly, as it has already this year.