One man's trash...

I received a bag of fabric from my friend Leslie the other day. She makes such beautiful things, with some of the most stunning fabrics, so when she said she had some scraps she didn't want anymore, I jumped at the chance. It's been awhile since I bought any fabric (just before Christmas in fact) so seeing some new prints surged some creativity.

I have had this doorstop in my hallway since we moved in months ago.



Maggie chewed it to pieces on one of the many days that her walk was overshadowed by two small children. I had been meaning to restore this since it happened as my mum had given it to us as a housewarming pressie.

Here she is in all her glory. Fabric kindly donated. Creativity itch finally scratched!

New Year New Views.

Man, is Christmas over already? Is January nearly done? Does my sweet little baby girl really turn 2 in only 3 days time? Time surely does fly.

With the holiday season I have fallen through the blogging (inter) net. But I'm back now and soooo looking forward to 2011. This is the year right? The year we start to realise some of the things we have wanted for ourselves. I can think of no better place to start than by being thankful for what I already have. Therein lies my riches. I have a wonderfully sweet, charming, funny and loving husband. Someone who has loved me even through my wild baby months where midnight rants where a common occurrence and the odd time he had to get down on the floor with me to stop the crying. He's been my rock. And I love him.



I am also thankful for my two beautiful children. But let me break that down somewhat. Miss Annie is a strong little individual who stands tall and hugs warmly. I am so proud of her. She has proved herself to be an amazing big sister over the past few months and as tough as it has been on her, she really is a little saving grace. I owe her a few special days out with just mumma. And Mr Tom. You are such a little cruiser. You put up with a lot. Thank you. I will let you smack Annie a few times when your older as payback before I tell you off. :)





I am also thankful for this house over our heads. I know I bitch and moan about it a bit...no aircon, no heating. The stumps out the back moved recently with all the rain we've been having and now we cant close the back door. It needs work right? But inside live three of the people I love the most in this world and they make all the cracks and all the imperfections just sweet to me. I know one day she'll be a Victorian beauty. Majestic and warm and open. But for now, I will just love her the way she is and enjoy the process a bit more.

I am also thankful that my family and Ben's family are healthy and happy people. We are so lucky. I think about Queensland and now Victoria and the challenges these people now face and I think 'come on em, lighten up my love'. We have it well. Very well indeed.

Is this the right post for new years resolutions? Perhaps, but I might leave that til later. For now though, some photos of those people I've mentioned. My lovely little family. Here's to 2011. Let's see it together.

Beautiful gifts from special friends.

I have been meaning to post these pictures but have just been so busy with Christmas and getting to know the little man. We received many lovely gifts from family and friends when Tom arrived in the world, but since this blog has a 'craft' slant, I just wanted to show you the ones that are handmade.

Here is a soft cushy block with a rattle inside made especially for my man-i-kins by our lovely friend Lisa. She is a whiz with all things linen and patchworky. This toy takes pride-of-place on his toy box.



This snuggly, cuddly blanket was made by Leslie. She has her own shop here and blog here. Wonderful handmade toys, blankets and more. Tom and I both appreciate the loveliness of this gift.



For all things projectile we have one-of-a-kind bibs made my Jo. Jo has a great blog and three delicious kids. We have been very spoilt indeed.

**Advent Calendar**

It's finished! Horray! So pleased with the final results on this one. It was the one project that I wanted to complete before the end of the year and I managed it. (And only three days late too!)



The frame I found at savers for $7. The Linen I bought online through Duckcloth (so lovely!). The small floral fabric on the inside of the pockets was kindly donated by a friend and the small pins were a fab find on etsy.



The stamped numbers were a steal at spotlight for only $15. I used some ink that I bought years ago at a crafting festival in Canada. All in all, quiet a cheap project.



In each little pocket there are chocolates or decorations for Annie to add to our tree. I plan on bringing this calendar out every year for our family to enjoy!

Thank you Lisa for the inspiration!

mother of two.

Ten weeks have gone by since the arrival of the little man. I can't even believe it has been that long. Time hurtles when you're dealing with late nights and spew. Thomas has added a lovely dimension to our family. He is reserved and shy. Delightfully happy and wonderfully easy going. His only issues to date have been cat napping in 45 minute stints and smiling too much during feeding.

Annie finds him quite amusing. She will deliberately hit him just to hear him cry. I caught her biting his eyebrow the other day. Now that was a mere 15 minutes I never want back! Lately though she is getting used to him. She wants to hold his hand and kiss his forehead. I encourage all of it (because there has been such a lack of love lately) but we have stopped letting her just do what she wants with him. It was getting to the point that I thought social services would knock on the door any day now. Miss A has taken some getting used to Mr T.

His parents have taken just as long. I have to say that I am gobsmacked at how challenging two kids can be. When Tom wasn't sleeping well I spent a good deal of my time on the floor sobbing my heart out. I felt helpless. Like I didn't know how to care for him. It was a very tough few weeks.

When I managed to come up for air I grabbed a copy of 'Save Our Sleep' by Tizzy Hall. I was so over tired and caught up with caring for Annie as well, that it has escaped me that he needed awake time. I know, how silly, right? With a little help from Tizzy I was able to put some kind of system in place that allowed me the right to say 'well, he cant be tired, he can't be hungry...' etc etc. It was the confidence that I so sorely needed.

In the last few weeks Tom has been much better. He still catnaps a lot, but I have stopped fighting it so hard. I get him up, smile at him a lot and keep him wrapped in his bouncer. He usually ends up falling asleep. I know he will eventually learn how to sleep longer, but I don't have the time or the patience to stand in his bedroom for 30 minutes trying to teach him myself. My other child just wont allow it :)

With all this commotion there has been little time for me. Time to sew. I have so many things that I would love to make, especially with Christmas on it's way, but I have to be realistic. There simply wont be time. I have decided that the one thing I would like to achieve will be an advent calendar. My friend Lisa made a beautiful one on a sewing weekend we attended together and I have thought of it ever since. I bought myself some pins to secure each day and am currently working out how this thing will look and work.



Keep your fingers crossed for me.

A letter to me.

Before I went into Labour I wrote myself a letter. It helped to get all that was going on inside my head on paper. My brain was in overdrive preparing for the arrival of Tom and I wanted to collect my thoughts. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to enter into their birth with an open mind. It helps a lot.

Dear Emily
If today is the day that you go into labour I need you to know this. I am proud of you. I am proud of what you are about to do. Of what your body is about to do. It’s a wonderous thing that you can push this baby into the world all by yourself. Your body is built to do this. It knows how to make this happen. How to get the baby down and into position to be pushed gently into this world. You will cope so well I am sure of it. You will use water and breathing to get yourself through, believing fully that you are capable of this and so much more. Do not let fear envelope you. Do not let it steer your thoughts and run you off this road. Yell back at fear. Tell him to shove it where the sun don’t shine. Think of the Flemish woman in the fields who smiled her way through childbirth and welcomed her baby with open arms. Keep your lips loose and your heart open to a miracle. I have never believed in you more than I believe in you on this here day. You are inspiring. You make me feel uplifted. This baby is so lucky to have you helping them into this wonderful world.
Nothing you do today, no decisions you make, are wrong. You are right and true in all you decide. Be sure that you will be ok. Don’t make yourself feel guilt if things don’t go the way you planned. At the end of all this the result is exactly the same. You will have a beautiful healthy baby. A treasure to behold. A sibling for Annie. Another light in your life. You are so lucky to be able to have this experience. Remember that. Remember how lucky you really truly are.
Trust in yourself. Hold Bens hand. Trust in Ben. Listen to the midwives. Hold the midwives hands. Take a deep breath. Trust in your breath. Visualise the waves crashing in on the cave. Welcome the warmth. Open yourself up to this delivery. To the arrival of your baby. To the possibility that you just might be as brave as you have always wanted to be.
With much love, respect and belief in you,
Emily

Thomas Gerald Brocklesby 09.09.2010

::update:: found this photo of when Annie was born and weighed. They look a like, don't you think?



I'm not quiet sure how to begin this birth story. I have an urge to start it with Annie's birth story as it paves the way for so much of my thought and wishes with this one.

To recap: Miss Annie was induced a week over her due date. I spent a long and sometimes annoyingly painful two days strapped to monitors in Sandringham hospital. On day three they told me I wasn't even quiet 1 centimeter. *sigh* They broke my waters, encouraged contractions but 6 hours later I was still that measly 1 cent. At this stage I begged for an epidural and in hindsight it was the best thing I could have done. With the threat of a C-section looming I felt weary and emotional and as if my whole birth plan had been blown up by the Americans. I surrendered. And because I did, I fell asleep and managed to wake up two hours later, full dilated and ready to push. That epidural saved me from a worse faith and for that I will be eternally grateful.

On Wednesday night 08.09.2010 I went for my 40 week checkup. My midwife laughed when she saw me. 'Surely you should have a baby by now?' she exclaimed. We had been joking non stop about this because for weeks now I had had serious Braxton Hicks and as my midwife put it 'a head so far down it was ready to come out any second!'. I was pretty emotional at this appointment, feeling that I would NEVER have a baby. I was due to head to a friends after wards, but feeling exhausted and highly sensitive decided not to go. Thank god for that.

At 11pm on that same night I woke with period pain. I would describe it as cramping in my lower abdominal. I came and went and for the first time in months, I could not go back to sleep. I decided to time them.

10,9,8,7,6,5...

Shit. That's a bit fast, I thought! I decided to jump in the shower. My midwife had said that if when in the shower the pain does not subside, you're probably in labour. As the water pounded my now aching lower back i noticed we had dropped to 2 & 3 minutes apart. Things were speeding up.

I woke Ben. He sighed. I think every time he looked at me over the last month of this pregnancy he thought 'the 30-something year old who cried wolf!'. He patted me groggily and said 'when it's time it's time chook'. I mentioned the 2-3 minutes apart and that roused him from sleep. We called the midwife who listened to me over the phone for 10 minutes. 'Ok, that's 5 in ten minutes, I would get going to the hospital if I was you'.

No arguing with that! We bundled Miss Annie into the car and met my parents at 2:30 in the morning at emergency Royal Women's. They took my baby girl home and I was admitted at 3am. The midwife on duty was a little aloof. I wasn't sure I liked her. She came in and out of the room without speaking much and only touched my stomach occasionally during a contraction. She mentioned we might go home again - I shot Ben a look that screamed 'Not bloody likely!'

At 4am she announced that I was 4 centimeters and doing well. I decided to shower. It helped - a lot! After an hour of being in there with Ben spraying me like a beached whale, I got out. I strapped on the tens machine and buckled in for a bumpy ride.

(Let me just say that I had no grand plans about this birth. I had read Ina May Gaskins book and watched numerous episodes of 'One every minute' on SBS but really I figured I would just give it a shot and if it got too much 'hook me up love'.)

Throughout the next hour or so the contractions really increased. Sitting on the toilet with the gas was one of the only comfortable positions I could muster. I begged the midwife to tell me what stage I was at, but she just kept saying 'you're doing really well, that's all you need to know'. Before long I was begging Ben for help. 'No more, no more, no more, no more, no more' became my chant through contractions. He left the room to move the car (hello?) and the midwife went outside to flap around. I stood next to the bed, bent over it, naked from the waste down, clutching my gas and focusing on my breathing. Not having them there to whinge too helped, and I learn't later that it was a planned strategy the midwife had concocted with Ben.

When they reentered the room I began begging for help again. 'I want an epidural' I spat. Again I got 'You're doing great, just wait until the other midwife gets here, half and hour and then we'll get you sorted' BOLD FACED LIE! Within 20 minutes I complained that there was pressure below. My midwife encouraged me to get on all fours on the bed and start pushing...

...Ok stop. This is where I freaked out. Did she say 'push'? My brain started to numb (could have been the gas) I stopped momentarily and took that comment in. Oh shit, I thought. We've come too far now. There's no going back. This would be a drug free birth whether I liked it or not. I buried my head in the pillow, left the gas permanently in my mouth and turned the tens machine on to 'REALLY TRULY PAINFUL'.

Over the next hour or so the midwife and Ben coached me through the most pain I think I've ever felt in this life. All of it bearable though. I could feel his head as it moved down the birth canal. I moaned at the pressure of it all. When I got the urge to push I relished it. I pushed slowly and thoughtfully all too aware that I didn't want that head tearing any part of me. We got to the crowning and like some poster child for birth I yelled 'It stings!'. With another push I felt the most amazing thing. My vagina came back together around his neck. The relief was immediate. I felt his little body turn giving him the best chance to get his shoulders out and with one mighty push he slipped right out of me.

It was 7:31am.

I kept sucking on the gas. Ben buried his head in my hair and said 'you did it, you did it.' over and over and over. I was a little light headed from the gas but managed 'What is it?'.

'A boy!' Ben beamed. 'A little boy'.

I couldn't spin around fast enough. The Tens wires were all wrapped up and the gas machine fell to the floor. I just was not going to believe it was a boy until I saw him.

And there he was. In all his wondrous glory. A little boy. Perfect and sweet and with MASSIVE balls. I held him close. I kissed his yucky head. I thanked God it was all over. We stayed like this for a hour as they tended to my 1 stitch and called everyone we knew to tell them the news.

I went into this pregnancy looking for one thing - to go into labour naturally. It was my only goal. I came out of it having the most amazing experience of my life so far. It was a damn painful one, but by god it rates high on my list of things that rock. I managed to conquer the fear of the pain, rather than the pain. It was a moment for me. It was a hurdle that I think has been holding me back for far to long. I'm way too cautious, not spontaneous, always worrying about what might happen rather than what could happen.

My midwife was sent from somewhere very special. She got me. She knew how to get me through. I will be forever grateful for the experience I had at that hospital and with those people. This vigour for life has charged me into my care with Tom. I am far more relaxed. I am much more maternal. I am slowly edging towards the person (the mother) that I have always wanted to be. I don't just put that down to Tom's birth, I put it down to my rebirth. Someone who wont let fear stand in the way of all that life has to offer.

And that's it. My story. It's by no means spectacular. In fact, it's probably only interesting to me, and maybe Ben, and possibly Tom when he's 20.

...off to care for my two precious kids...
Em
x