Up, Up and Away

Just another Monday night in ghill.

Ok this hardly never happens!

 

Oliver was loving every minute of it!

Hot Air Bee-uoon = good times.



song of the week

This week's song is by Alexi Murdoch and is all kinds of beautiful!

I've love, love, loved it for years.

Orange Sky from the Time Without Consequences album

Other gems from this album are All My Days, Wait, Song for You



Days Like These

The last couple of days have been bit a crazy.

I have been in training for a new software we are implementing at work, only in the afternoon but by the end of the 4 hours my brain is fried. Lets face it with a toddler and a 3 month old it was kind of fried already! So by the time I get Oliver from daycare and get home it's pushing 6 o'clock and Guy has been working late to boot. A crying baby that doesn't want to be put down and a fussy, hungry toddler that wants my full attention means that from 6-7 pm is hell the witching hour. So last night we ate strawberries, cheese and crackers and instant oatmeal for dinner. Things I could literally prepare in seconds! Oliver enjoyed it and scarfed down so I'll say it was a success.

I've been focusing on this little saying the last couple of days to keep things in perspective.

 photo source

Except they will see the pictures of my horrendous hair! ha

Sibling Love * sharing matties

making the cut

It's Monday and we survived another hot, hot weekend!

(with little to no rain, everything is getting so crispy round here)

Anyhoo, it's a bit of a photo dump today

because when you have little ones this cute its hard not to!

 



News flash... we finally got Oliver's hair cut. It was traumatic and intense. For all of us.

There was crying (mostly Oliver), screaming (Oliver), pleading (all of us) and begging (again all of us).

But we managed to get er done and he looks great! And so grown up.

song of the week

Bonnie "Prince" Billy- Hummingbird EP

Hummingbird Pt 1 and Pt 2 are so wonderful!
Check out the whole EP here. Also available for purchase on itunes.


Read full review of Hummingbird EP - BONNIE PRINCE BILLY on Boomkat.com ©

What Love Looks Like

1/. Sibling Lovin', 2/. Mama + Oliver early morning snugs, 3/. Georgie rock'n the Bumbo!

4/. Oliver, 5/. Georgie, 6/. Traffic Jam, 7/. More snuggles... get em while you can,

8/. Baby lips, 9/. Trucks, Trains and Diggers oh my!

Visual Delights

It finally arrived....

my copy of The Family of Woman 1979 edition

There are just so many amazing photographs found in these pages so here a couple of my favourites.

For now. So many more to come.

Sticker Books and Catnap Cathy

About a month ago I found this awesome (if you are a two year old boy) sticker book

filled with all kinds of cars, diggers, tractors, boats and airplanes.

In fact at first I wasn't even sure if Oliver would get the whole sticker thing

or if he would just like to look at the pages instead.

He LOVED it. And he loves to "play stickers Mama" "play stickers Daddy"

I totally hit the jackpot with that sweet score and it's the best toddler currency to get him to do things we want him to do (am I admitting to bribing my kid?.. a little bit) except for ultra important things like going on the potty and getting his hair cut but on everything else it works like a charm.
We've gone through about 5 sticker books since.

Which brings us to Catnap Cathy, the Queen of catnaps. All day long.

 Eyes closed....... and then open. did you really think I was going to sleep Mama?

Get serious.

Boo!

song of the week

"Teeth" by Bowerbirds

from the album Upper Air

The wee ones and I having really been enjoying this album from the Bowerbirds,

ok.... mostly me. Folk, accoustic and dreamy duets gets me everytime!

A blocked duct = death

or what feels like death...

yesterday morning I woke to a fever, aching body that was drenched in sweat and rock hard boob.

I've been down this road before, I had a similar experience while breastfeeding Oliver.

So I wasn't shocked or too concerned this time. I was down and out for the better part of the day though and am lucky that Guy could come back home from work to drive Oliver to the sitters because I was way too weak and dizzy to do so (AND that Oliver goes to the sitters! hallelujah) and that Georgie was decent enough to sleep most of the day or quietly stare at the ceiling in her bassinet! There was lots of cooperation going on in g-hill yesterday so this mama could rest up.

 It's still a tad blocked but I am nursing her like crazy from that boob and using a warm compress and slathering coconut oil on it like nobodies business. I guess it is probably nobodies business but I'm sharing anyway. It's actually really crazy that a blocked duct (or several) can be that debilitating,
but it totally knocked me out!

On a completely unrelated note, could someone please explain to me why people insist on yanking the blanket off your sleeping baby to "get a better look"? I don't get it. If the blanket isn't covering their face (which I obviously don't do) and I don't mask my children on outings or anything, then what is the need to look at their legs and feet? Especially if they are sleeping peacefully (for the first time that day) why risk waking them for a glimpse at their feet? Bizarre, completely bizarre. And annoying.And thanks for waking my baby.

And while my babies were awake I snapped these....

Oh glorious toes and all!
 I'll take a sore boob every now and then to ensure they get the good stuff.
 Because they don't come much healthier then these two!

Joy

doesn't get better than this....

can't get enough of my munchkins xoxo

and loving summer a whole bunch, even with this intense heat!



song of the week

The Cave Singers- "Swim Club"

from the album No Witch

The kiddos and I have been rocking out to this in the car for a few weeks....

we LOVE it!

The Homebirth of Georgina Kay Part 2

** if you missed Part One, click here**

By 5:30pm the contractions were coming regularly, not too strong but consistent so we started timing them. By 6:30 they were coming every 3-4 minutes and lasting nearly a minute. We paged our midwife and started filling up the tub! Charlotte and her student midwife Helen arrived by 7pm and another internal exam confirmed I was 8.5 cm. My secondary midwife Beth was called to come out and arrived shortly after. I felt great, my contractions were getting stronger but totally manageable. I was present, in the moment and able to chat with Guy and my wonderful midwives the entire time. With Oliver's labour I felt best on all fours rocking back and forth throughout the contraction.... actually I was pretty much on all fours throughout my entire labour with him and totally silent, I hardly spoke at all. But this time I felt best standing upright and moving with the contraction like a wave, I kept moving and walking around and sipped on hot water with lemon and honey (since I was still recovering from my cold). I also enjoyed a couple of my birthing staples (raspberry juice bars from M &M's) to cool me down, seriously I love these juice bars.... I stretched my back and calf muscles with the Aligned and Well exercises which felt amazing and of course Guy was there to massage my lower back through the contraction when I needed him to. But mostly I just walked around from room to room, made my hot water and lemon drinks at my leisure, listened to the birthing playlist I made and happily took in the moments leading up to the arrival of our little babe. Which I must say are (I think) a lot easier to do in your own environment.

The tub took some time to fill up since the connector didn't fit our faucet, we had to heat up pots on the stove instead of just using the tap. By 9 pm the tub was ready for me to get in and I was ready to get in! With Oliver, I felt the tub slowed my labour down and I was only in for about 20 minutes. This time it sped things up, I had only been in for about 30 minutes or so when I started feeling like pushing with each contraction. I decided to get out of the tub and get onto the mattress I set up in the kitchen. (Yes I birthed both my kids in the kitchen!) I laid on my back for another very quick internal exam , which confirmed it was go time. It was 9:37 when I got out of the tub and with 3 or maybe 4 pushes Georgina Kay was born at 9:52 pm. I was kneeling on the mattress but upright this time and gravity really did it's thing! She came out so fast, there was no head, then shoulder then other shoulder business. She came barreling out like a bullet!
 I could hear Charlotte saying "hear comes your bab.....it's here!" I scooped her up, had a quick look
and announced to everyone that we had a GIRL.

Within 3 minutes of her entering the world, she latched on like a pro! Georgina was so alert, eyes open and ready to be snuggled my her Mama. Total Perfection. We waited for the cord to stop pulsing before clamping it and this time Guy was ready to cut the cord (he didn't cut it with Oliver). The placenta was a little trickier this time, the cord detached and it wasn't as easy to deliver as it had been with Oliver. Charlotte helped slowly guide it out, careful to keep it in tact as she new I wanted to have it encapsulated (more on that later). A little maneuvering on both our parts and voila the placenta was out! It was much smaller than Oliver's which I thought was amazing and actually I never thought about placentas coming in such a variety of sizes... but they certainly do!

After the placenta was delivered, I just laid back, nursed and snuggled my sweet new baby and chatted happily with my midwives! I felt very different from how I did at Oliver's birth. With him I was totally exhausted and felt like I was on another planet while labouring and delivering him, a very happy planet of course but a foggy one. All the details are a bit hazy. This time I was alert and present and completely in the moment. While everything happened fast, the details are a lot more vivid. I continued to nurse her and Guy and I marveled at our newest creation.
Charlotte prepared my herbal bath and Georgie and I got in for a relaxing soak just as I had done
with Oliver. We cuddled and she nursed (some more)... this little girl sure was hungry.
I couldn't believe she was here, we had a little GIRL, it had all happened so fast and so easy
 and she was perfection!