Love yourself

I have been missing in action on the interweb lately. I miss it, but my priorities have shifted recently. A few loved ones have asked what’s going on. There’s nothing going on - I’m just busy elsewhere. Pebble is keeping me very, very busy. I used to be able to watch her roll around on the floor and play happily while I blogged away. These days if I get the laptop out she wants to play too, and gets very frustrated when I don’t let her. So we play together with other toys instead, and everyone is much happier for it. Nap times are going well in this house (shhh, don’t tell that I said that out loud, I don’t want to jinx it!). However, any free time I get with a baby nap is easily taken up with the cooking, laundry, housework, etc. Evenings are taken up with long chats over dinner with the hubby before we usually retire to bed early, as our nights are still quite unpredictable. On top of all of that, I’ve started working again. Not official on the clock work, but the ‘getting ready for the new school year’ work that comes with being a teacher, especially a teacher who has had a year away from the classroom. Oh, sorry, what’s that? You thought us lazy teachers worked short days and got heaps of holidays?…. Don’t. Get. Me. Started!!

So, that’s my life right now, and I honestly love it. I hope to be back here at the Rockgarden at least once a week in future. I hope you can bear with me and stay tuned during this quieter time.

It’s kind of hard to pick up the conversation where we last left off, but here are a few little tidbits to keep your curiosity satisfied:

• Paul and I have slowly added to our home with some choice Ikea pieces, including a glossy white buffet and bookshelf/wall unit. They’re looking good but need a bit of tarting up.
• Christmas planning is in full swing, and is giving me nightmares already! I am truly blessed to have so much family to love, but it does make Christmas tricky, spreading the love around.
• We installed our first baby gate, blocking Pebble from terrorising the bathroom. Slippery tiles are not a great play surface. Now I can shower while Pebble safely plays in the hallway, instead of shrieking with frustration while strapped into a baby chair.
• Swimming lessons are going well, in that Pebble loves swimming very much. Her favourite activities are drinking the pool water and splashing her class mates.
• Pebble has been waking every morning for the last three days in a pool of piss up to her armpits! The poor little vegemite is now sleeping almost exclusively in the ‘tummy down-bum in the air’ pose, which means that the front of her nappy fills quickly to capacity, then the wee just trickles down her tummy and chest and soaks into her pjs. Only once has she woken up uncomfortable with it, the other two nights she slept thought, soggy or not. We’re going to try putting her in boy nappies at night, and if that doesn’t soak it up we’ll try putting a bigger nappy over the top of the regular sized one. I’d like to avoid waking her (and myself!) to change her in the night for as long as possible!
• Pebble is working on her third tooth, and so far it hasn’t been too painful for her or us. Fingers crossed!
• The social calendar for the month of November is bursting at the seams. So far we’ve enjoyed one very busy and social weekend, with lots of bubbly consumed on my behalf. I think it’s going to be a very merry party season!

Finally – I hope you can all look in the mirror today and give yourself a big, wet, sloppy kiss ala Miss Pebble, who is very into kissing her baby doll, her pooh bear teddy and …. herself! We should all love ourselves that much.