Life of the pussycats...

What's Mummy reading now and does it taste good?

This is the day...

I took Jake for a walk and he started wailing. He cried all the way home...at one point I was carrying him and pushing the buggy at the same time. I should have known when I took this photo of him that he was feeling grumpy!!

Hey, I know you!

I love my moose

they sure like puttin' me in funny hats round here...

fuzzy head monkey toes

One of us has done something smelly...

Three months old!

Hello everybody!

I've got me a fancy mobile!

Whaddya think of my crib?

My little baldy

...is almost 6 weeks old!

Observations

1. We think Jake was a kung fu master in a former life (see photo above).

2. It's amazing how well you can function on only four hours sleep (driving and operating heavy machinery not withstanding).

3. Where does the time go?

4. There is no warmth like the warmth of a baby sleeping on you.

5. When he sleeps, he sleeeeeeps. When he's awake, we know about it.

6. There is no such thing as wasting time anymore.

7. Remembering to and getting a chance to have a shower is a cause for celebration.

8. I've finally learned to gobble my food down.

9. Getting baby pee, poo and spit up all over you is not the end of the world.

10. I wouldn't change this for anything.

For more observations, go to Sunday Scribblings.

Life with Jake

My little wriggler

Baby Jake arrived on Wednesday 23rd July at 8:45am. He was born at home, weighing in at 8.5lbs, and only a day late!

The labour went well, an intense and quick 7 hours and was all natural except for a couple of hours while I was sucking on the Entonox resisting the urge to push till I was fully dilated. That Entonox is GOOD STUFF!!

Baby Jake is very healthy, a real wriggler! And he's definitely got his Daddy's long legs and feet.

He's crying a lot at the moment though, we think he's finding the heat a bit much, poor little fella.

Despite the lack of sleep and the heat, Paul and I are doing well too and are very happy and busy falling in love with our little boy.

Love to you all.

How to wait for your baby to arrive...

1. Go for walks (waddles) round the neighbourhood.

2. Try to remember that for every person who ogles your belly in disbelief, there is another who looks at you and smiles.

3. Enjoy everything you are still eating.

4. Watch all those films you've been saving for a rainy day.

5. Start reading a 637 paged novel.

6. Listen to Louis Armstrong.

7. Enjoy watching the new Mom across the street when she feeds her baby by the window.

8. Tell yourself it's perfectly normal to feel the need to pee every time you sit down.

9. Steep yourself in the joy and mystery of the sound of Buddhist monks chanting (and even join in).

10. Listen to Cat Stevens' Ruby My Love as many times as you want because it makes you want to cry with joy.

11. Moan as much as you want, but then be positive.

12. Seek out pleasures like peach icecream and the best jello ever to be made.

13. Write to that juice company to ask them why they put sweetened condensed milk in their fruit juice instead of just complaining about it.

14. Hug your partner, lots.

15. Enjoy the silence.

16. Remember that every mother on earth has gone through this.

17. Remind yourself that it is impossible to stay pregnant forever.

18. Belly dance to The Mercy Seat and Skokian, remembering what the true origins of belly dancing were.

19. Relax, breathe and do nothing else.

20. Remember this:

Blooming and growing...

...with three weeks to go, though now that I am at 37 weeks, I'm considered to be full term and he could arrive at any moment!

I'm finally on maternity leave, it was just the right time to finish work. I had a lovely send off, including this gorgeous bunch of flowers. The peonies are opening and blooming beautifully, giving me a wonderful image to focus on for the birth.

Hope you are having a fantastic summer, whatever you're up to.

Happy cats in their new home

New life

One of the first things we did after unpacking was to wash the clothes we're going to need for baby Jake's first few months...we've never had anything so adorable on our washing line before.

Scroll down further for baby Jake's first gifts, from his wonderful fairy godmother in Nipomo.


























I'm loving the tie dye look!! Thank you Changa!!

Moving and stuff

Well, we're moved in and all, and the flat is lovely! But we only have the internet on Paul's computer at the moment, and my photos are on my computer and Paul's computer is really uncomfortable to sit at, so blogging is gonna be a bit of a pain for a while.

Here is one photo of the day we moved in, clutching my beach ball belly. Even though I didn't do any lifting, it was still exhausting. More photos to come soon.

Meme

It's a rainy Friday evening and I just spotted this meme on na's blog, so decided to play along...

10 years ago I was 26 years old, renting an overpriced room about as big as a walk in cupboard that didn't even have it's own toilet. Everything was in one room, my single bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a shower, a two-ring electric cooker and a fridge. It was off the Portobello Road in Notting Hill. The walls were so thin I could hear everything my next door neighbours did and said. I hardly cooked because the smell of it would linger for days. So I visited the local chip shop far too often. I didn't think it was cool at all, it was dingy and depressing and my first taste of living alone in London. I despaired of ever finding anywhere affordable and decent to live by myself in London and definitely never imagined that in 10 years time I'd be expecting a baby. 10 years ago I probably didn't even want children.

5 things on my to do list

- Finish packing!

- Send out change of address cards to people not on email

- Buy some newborn baby clothes, nappies and a Moses basket before we move, just in case

- See the Hammershoi exhibition with Mad

- Go to the Psycho Buildings exhibition at the Hayward

Things I'd do if I was a billionaire

- Give millions of it away to good causes, I hate the idea of being that rich. Anyone that rich has probably had to exploit a lot of people to get that way.

- Use some of the money towards building a green home and setting up some sort of sustainable living / permaculture scheme to grow organic food for local communities

- Set up a fund so that such schemes could be set up all over the UK

- Put money away for my baby's future

Three bad habits

- Irritable when I am tired

- Very judgemental of noisy people

- Buying too many books that then go unread

5 places I've lived in the past

- Jerusalem, Israel

- Damascus, Syria

- Long Island, New York, USA

- Rawalpindi, Pakistan

- Nicosia, Cyprus

5 jobs I've had

- bit part in a Cypriot chocolate commercial

- babysitting

- envelope stuffer

- substitute ESOL teacher in a family hostel

- Administrator

Have a great weekend. I probably won't be posting anymore till after we've moved house.

P.S. The photo above was taken last summer, during a walk through Kensington Gardens where I found some fallen flowers, brought them home and kept them. I made several drawings of them once they had dried and I still have those dried flowers today!

Below are some of the drawings I made from the flowers...