a few of my favourite things

I've been invited to participate in this year's Blogger Secret Santa... Hooray! I love finding gifts, and sometimes making them, for people, so this should be loads of fun! Of course this also means that someone will be sending me a gift, and since most of us don't know each other it's been suggested that we make some sort of list of things we like.

Well, this is mine... but first a note to my dear Secret Santa. The list below is just an indication of some of the things I love... what I love most of all is creativity and receiving something with a personal touch from the person I receive it from. So if you are creative and are good at some craft or hobby & feel like expending the time on me, go ahead! Or if you want to use the list as a general guideline, do it! :)

• Hearts - I have a growing collection of hearts of all shapes, sizes & materials... Particularly weathered metal or white-washed wood.

 

• Photo frames - We have a photo wall, which needs to be extended to include photos of our new baby girl. Although we have an eclectic collection of frames, they generally fit into the white-washed & weathered look...

• Craft punch - I've been drooling over Martha Stewart's craft punches for a while now! I like to make my own cards to accompany gifts & a pretty craft punch would take my cards & labels to a new level of creativity ;) Of course it doesn't need to be Martha Stewart, I think speciality stationery or scrapbooking shops should stock various punches.

• Stationery - I love all stationery, but what I need at the moment is a beautiful pen (well maybe I don't really need so much as want one!)... I do need a new file punch and I'm always open to receiving pretty paper or scrapbooking paper or even some interesting ink stamps...

• Humanwrit.es - I've always been a Moleskine girl, but a Humanwrit.es writeable has been on my wishlist since they launched...

• Bright nail varnish - bright nails are "in" at the moment & I'd like to try out a new colour... Maybe coral, which is in vogue at the moment? Not pink though, I have plenty of that! I'd prefer a make like Sally Hansen, but any good quality make will be great... NOT Essie though as I find it chips too easily.

• Chocolate - I'm an exhausted mom to a newborn and 1 year old. If I could I would live on chocolate, but that would make it difficult to get my toddler to eat anything else! I am particularly fond of Cadbury's Mint Crisp or Lindt Red Lindor Balls

• Pamper - I love Woolworth's Olive & Argan Oil Body Butter. On my to do list is trying out something from the Body Thrills range. Or if you have some pamper treatment you'd like to introduce me to that'd be great too - no bath salts or bubble bath please!

• Flickr - My Flickr Pro account expired earlier this year, so I'm back to the limited free account, but another year's Pro account subscription is on my wishlist...

• Reading - I love reading cookbooks, drooling over stunning food photographs. Oh yes, and cooking when I get a chance! I'd love a Bill Granger cookbook or a copy of (or subscription to) one of my favourite magazines - Woolworths Taste or Ideas. **EDIT** I should probably also add that I LOVE baking. So any baking utensils or biscuit recipes or baking ingredients are a winner for me!

 

I think I'll stop there! I thought it would be difficult to put a list together, but it seems it's difficult not to get carried away... I hope you have fun with your gift for me, Secret Santa!

my problem with sugar

It all started in my first pregnancy... Around the beginning of the second trimester I noticed that when I ate anything containing sugar, including fruit, I would get a strange sensation on my tongue and my heart would go into palpitations (or something like that). My routine urine tests with my Ob/Gyn and Midwife would also show sugar, if I had eaten fairly close to the appointment. so I learnt to avoid sugary foods, and tried to follow my blood type diet in an effort to keep baby within an acceptable weight range. I was quite strict on myself. All of this worked out well as Arnan was born at 40w+4d at 3.1kg. After the birth everything returned to normal and I sort of forgot about my sugar issues.

I fell pregnant with our second bundle of joy in the beginning of this year. With Arnan I craved milkshakes, this little one demanded sweet things and chilli. I particularly craved chocolate, something I rarely eat, but we happened to have an influx of chocolate in the house, and I was not complaining! I started noticing the same "symptoms" as before towards the middle of my first trimester. Since I would only see my Midwife around 16 weeks pregnant, I contacted her with my detailed sugar history, just in case it needed attention. My Midwife recommended I see a Nutritional Therapist ASAP. So I did. I was somewhat more accurately diagnosed with a sugar imbalance - not gestational diabetes, but if left as is it could turn into something more serious. I left with a meal plan guideline, basically a Low GI diet plan, a sense of relief at having finally been "diagnosed", and much bravado. Things always seem so much easier and more straight forward when I'm sitting in front of a specialist than when I'm faced with the realities of every day life.

The biggest take out I got from my session with the Nutritional Therapist was to ensure there is enough protein included in every meal, particularly where sugars are involved. So, instead of eliminating most fruit from my diet, as I had with my first pregnancy, I can eat a portion of fruit accompanied by a protein such as plain low fat yoghurt or a handful of nuts.

Everything went well for a while. Although, I did discover that due to Arnan's routine I was not getting to the snacks in between meals I was supposed to be eating. No big deal there, I just ate my fill at breakfast and lunch. And then I went to visit & stay with my in-laws for a week while Nico was away. The meal plan went out of the window, and I conveniently forgot about it, only semi-following it upon my return home.

I was brought back to reality at my 28 week check-up with my Midwife. Not only did the test find sugar in my urine, but my fundal measurement (the straight line from pubic bone to top of uterus, which is supposed to correspond in centimetres with the number of pregnancy weeks) was 36 weeks! My Midwife was very concerned and gave me a stern reprimand about the risks, not to myself but to my baby, of receiving too much sugar. I think I turned a pale shade of white, no one had ever taken the time to explain the implications of my sugar imbalance on my baby. I was feeling so guilty. And it just so happened that Nico could not make it to this particular appointment! As soon as I got to the car I phoned Nico in tears, he thankfully had time to meet up with me close to work to discuss what had just happened. We decided we would not stress ourselves out about it until we had confirmation from our 4D scan as to how big baby really was. Easier said than done, but I think the stress helped me stick, as far as possible, to my eating plan as I waited the 2 weeks until the scan. And boy did I pray that everything would be alright with my baby!

The day of our scan finally arrived! Not only was I excited to see our baby girl again but keen to get confirmation on how big she was and whether the excess sugar had affected her in any way. It was such a relief when her measurements came through normal, she was only 4 days "bigger" than her gestational age and I just seem to have more amniotic fluid than average.

At my Midwife appointment the next day we discovered that I had lost a little weight and that my fundal measurement was only 2 weeks ahead, I had "shrunk" 5 weeks! What a miracle.

Maintaining a healthy diet is not easy, but I have tried to stick to my low GI diet and avoid all the sweet things I crave. Knowing that I am nearly there - only 6 to 8 weeks left before baby will be here - really helps. This too shall pass. And then I am going to eat some of the chocolate I've been stashing away for that day!

naming right

naming a child must be one of the most daunting, challenging tasks a parent is faced with right at the outset of their parenting "career". i believe that your name defines you, it becomes a part of you and who you are, that it reflects who you are to become, or perhaps who you are already - if that makes any sense at all. for this reason, i do not take the naming of my children lightly at all.

and so, as you may imagine, i am in a flat spin, losing sleep, that i am 6 months pregnant and the name of our daughter has not been decided yet. yes, there have been options, and yes, the list has been pretty much narrowed down to what are most likely to be her names... but i have so many doubts, and i'm not sure why... i love the meanings of the names we have come up with. but i guess having gone through this once before i am much more cautious in my approach.
will people be able to pronounce her name correctly? i have struggled with this all my life, and always will. is her name too unique? i love unique names, probably because i have one, but let's face it people do not "get" names they haven't heard before - something my son will have to deal with because of his unique name... will the name suit her? will she love it? is it pretty enough for a girl's name, without boxing her into a stereotype for the rest of her life? are there any acceptable shortenings of the name? ah yes, there are many questions.
i am almost tempted to outsource the whole thing, all that stops me is that this is such a personal thing. not all names are meant for all families, and so we will just have to do this. there is a rapidly approaching end - if not before the birth, at or after the birth of our precious new addition to the family. i really hope, no, i know that we will choose the right name.

if you have any suggestions on how to make this an easier task, or would just like to share how you named your child(ren), please do so in the comments!

rambling along...

hello dear blog and blog readers (if there are any left out there at all)! i think of you often, i've started thinking of cool posts to write and even start writing some in my head. if only i could download these directly instead of having to type them out again... the posts would probably confuse you anyway since i am so often interrupted mid-thought.
if you follow me on twitter or you're a facebook friend you will not have missed much of my life at all. micro-blogging is the way to go for busy moms with busy tots!
i'm hoping that i'll be able to pick up on blogging some of my thoughts here soon though. it would be nice, wouldn't it? in the meantime i've been making a concerted effort to start blogging over at sustenance, our food blog, again. go have a look, try out some of the recipes and let me know what you think.
until next time...

i win!

i have been following tanya kovarsky's blog for a while now... at first because there was a competition i wanted to win and the conditions were that you subscribe to her blog via email. quite quickly, however, i was hooked - looking forward to reading the next letter to her young son.
well anyway, i've been entering the "wins" on her site regularly, and regularly am disappointed. i even vowed that i would no longer enter these competitions to avoid the disappointment! silly me... i couldn't help myself, though when tanya posted another competition, this time to win sunscreen. not just any sunscreen, but pure & protect kids, which is made with aqueous cream as a base. the competition was posted on arnan's 10 month "birthday", so i guess i felt a little more compelled to enter.
the winners were announced that sunday, and what would you know, i was one of the winners! i'm still waiting for my prize, but then again i haven't checked my postbox in a week or two. i can't wait to try out the new sunscreen on arnan (and myself)!

the "c" word

it's the word starting and ending in a "c", the word most new parents learn to dread... colic. and it moved in to our home at three weeks, just as nico went back to work. suddenly not only did i have to figure out how to look after a newborn by myself, newly recovered from a complicated labour, but my angel child would unexpectedly start screaming in pain without warning.

the early days are the worst. your child is screaming - not crying - in pain, with tears running down his face. babies don't get tears until much later. you have no idea what to do, no knowledge on what to do with babies in general (no your head does not miraculously fill with the required knowledge at birth) let alone in emergency situations like these. guilt and worry overcome you... what to do?

i can honestly say that i have tried just about everything short of just leaving our baby to cry in his cot. thankfully there are things that help, if even momentarily, and they probably go against everything you vowed you would never do with your child.

1. the chiro. our first stop was the chiropractor, even before our babe got colic, but we went again afterwards. i can't say whether it helped or not. we got some good advice from the second chiro - did you know that gas is a byproduct of milk digestion in breastfed babies? at least we can say we tried it.
   
2. "bouncing" our baby on an exercise ball. yes, rocking and jiggling him will work while he is still tiny, but there comes a time when everything you do unaided is just not enough. and when he is screaming in your ringing ear, writhing in pain, you do just that - bounce with him. it soothes him almost immediately, which means that you are calm enough to deal with the presenting problem.
3. leg maneuvers. these include bicycling his legs and holding them in to his stomach to aid in moving the farts along and out. also effective whilst bouncing on the ball (see above) or singing a silly song, "i like to push it, push it (x2); push it to the left and push it to the right...".
4. baby massage. i read various internet articles on baby massage, we attended a four week baby massage course and the chiro gave us some massage and exercise tips. using a pure cold pressed oil with some dill essential oil in it one may be able to aid in the relief from stuck farts. massaging the "bubbles" (they feel like bubble wrap in his soles) out of our baby's feet seems to calm him whilst helping in getting the farts out at times. massaging in a circular clockwise direction on the tummy is supposed to help but i have found that this is too sensitive a place to go for our little guy. then there's the "i love you" drawing on his tummy, supposed to make him poop but doesn't seem to have the desired effect. what i do sometimes though is just lightly rub the oil over his tummy. i reckon the dill oil helps and is absorbed through the skin.
   
5. lotions and potions. telament gripe water, telament colic drops, bennets colic mixture, mag phos (tissue salts no 8), magen, iberogast... i don't like to admit it, but i do get desperate when the wails start flying in. and everyone has a potion to cure colic. some are more effective than others. i found telament colic drops only work to get the burps out, our problem is with the farts. bennets colic mixture contains too much alcohol. iberogast seemed to work in the beginning but eventually seemed to increase the "bubbles" in our babe's tummy. mag phos helps against cramping but increases flatulence, which doesn't help as our guy seems to have pain when they exit too. right now natura's magen is all that i am giving him, added to a teaspoon of boiling water to evaporate the alcohol. it has an ingredient that is supposed to absorb the winds in the intestines and works within 15 minutes or less.
6. the pacifier. yes we went there, after vowing our child was not going to use one. what were we thinking? we found that although he refused to take it ordinarily, it would help to get him quietly into the car seat on outings... at times. someone would have to travel at the back with him to keep it in though. and then he suffered an episode of epic proportions at church two weeks ago, a sign of things to come. suddenly nothing worked. after troubleshooting every possible solution i stumbled onto the pacifier. it sounds logical, but because he had refused to take it before i never really considered it. that pacifier is never far away now. any sign of discontent and it's shoved into his mouth. i think i've gone over to the other extreme, overusing the thing, but it works and i will find a balance as soon as i've overcome the trauma of the past two weeks :)

our chiro says that the colic is due to an immature digestive system and that he should grow out of it between 12 and 14 weeks. there is hope.

count down

we have entered the final countdown... to our baby boy's arrival!

time has really flown by, it was only yesterday that we found out that we were expecting, that i was so proud of how big my bump was and then it got bigger... and bigger... my bump is so large now that it really could win against the watermelons in a fresh produce competition!

i am so excited - not only about our baby's arrival but about the actual act of birthing him. i know, it sounds crazy but it's true. i have always wanted a natural birth, completely natural with no meds. yes, no pain medication. just natural pain management and everything happening as it was designed to.

we were really lucky in discovering genesis clinic, a natural birthing centre or active birth unit. the funny thing is that nico had discovered genesis way before we even started thinking of having babies - i saved the link on delicious in the beginning of july 2009 and i am quite sure that nico had found the site before that. then we completely forgot about the whole thing by the time we were actually pregnant. thankfully we were reminded about it by my sister, who's friend was going to birth there. i remember driving around the suburbs with my sister in a bid to get my little nephew to fall asleep - all whilst chatting about pregnancy and babies.

being at a place that you're comfortable with is so important for labour. i love the atmosphere at genesis. i love the beautiful treed suburb. i'm looking forward to birthing in an environment where natural birth is accepted as the norm and where i'll have freedom to move about and birth the way it feels most natural to me.

there is so much excitement, and yet we are so relaxed. baby's room is ready, the bags have been packed and have been in the car since thursday. things are progressing well between baby and i. his head has been down and engaged nicely, i have been dilating with practice runs of contractions for a week now. we are actually totally prepared, even bored with nothing to do after months of shopping and trying to get everything done in time.

and now it's only a matter of time...