A Day At Mia's School

Recently there was a photographer at Mia's school who made a video of their school day, and took piccies too.  It was really sweet to see - Mia is shy and reserved and keeps to the back - but she does take part, singing the songs, doing the movements, clapping and waving.

I'm really so happy with her school and her teacher is wonderful.

Bit of a photo update!

 Mia had fun dressing up for Layla's birthday party recently.

 

Bottle time for little one.

 

I've started showing her picture books, she quite likes it!

 

Everything goes to the mouth now, too cute!

 

I giggled so much at this face she's pulling.  She looks so much like her pappa here!

 

Sisters reading and chilling together. ♥

 

Ella got a makeover. ;-)

 

Mia and her friend Milla at the Monte Casino Bird Gardens. Such a cute special friendship forming!

 

These sparkly eyes and rosy cheeks. Love.

 

Ouma Poppie came to visit for a day recently. We gave her a manicure!

 

Tummy time for blue-eyed beautiful tiny one!

 

And a huge thanks to my sister for designing my new blog header! Yay, absolutely love it and excited about a bit of a new look!

 

 

The end of breastfeeding

Ella has officially decided she's done with the boob.  After three weeks of only doing one feed per day in the morning, she has refused to latch the last three days.

I was feeling quite heartbroken and emotional about it this morning, but after much contemplation, I have made peace with it.  I made it to 16 weeks, and although I had hoped for a couple more months, at least she did start off quite well with mommy's liquid gold.

Breastfeeding Ella was such a different experience to breastfeeding Mia! Can read my blog post about breastfeeding Mia here.

I think what happened was, Mia breastfed so often, it kept my supply stimulated and sufficient.  I don't think Ella fed enough, and the low milk supply caused her lots of frustration at how hard she had to work to drink.  There were already lots of milk ducts that didn't work due to being damaged after my breast reduction op from 10 years ago.  So actually having been able to have breastfed at all was already lucky!

I can still snuggle her and hold her close as she drinks her bottle, so I'm not worried about the "closeness" that breastfeeding brings, I know we're snugglebugs enough!  I am sad that she's not getting all the good antibodies and probiotics that a mother's milk naturally supplies. I'm sad I didn't wean her based on my decision and on my terms...

Feeding time is at least much faster now that it's only a bottle, which helps a lot, especially when I'm doing my best to give both baby and pre-schooler lots of attention!

Also, now I have my body back to myself, after 9 months of pregnancy and 3 months of breastfeeding!

Bittersweet, everything just goes so fast.  We've got the introduction of solids coming up in the next couple of weeks, wow!
xx

This and that and everything!

Oh goodness, have really been neglecting my blog! I just literally, physically don't have the time. To give you an idea - I opened up this compose page at about 10am this morning to start a post, it's now after five in the afternoon...  Let me share a few random updates on us and see how far I get before my attention is needed elsewhere! ;-)

• My 360XBT Challenge is going well.  We're into the third week now, and so far I'm 2.7kg down! Already feeling better about myself, not such a squashed sausage anymore! Still have 10kg to go to get to pre-preggy weight, but feeling more confident now that I will get there sooner rather than later.

• I'm enjoying the eating plan - it follows lots of the principles of Paleo, no dairy, no white carbs, no sugar, no processed goods - but it includes oats, lentils, brown rice and such, which is wonderful! I'm learning about new things too, such as using miso to flavour foods, and to drink kombucha, amongst other things!  Really love veggies and doesn't feel like much extra work to do veggies for me and a starch for Wyn and Mia.

• The exercises are really great, can do them either at the gym or at home.  I'm liking the versatility of kettlebells and amazed at discovering Tabata, absolutely no more excuses to not fit some form of workout in each and every day!  Think I'm getting addicted to doing squats, and even managing my first-ever burpees!

• Mia has pink-eye.  We were at the doctor this morning, poor thing, it looks very irritated and inflamed, but luckily she says it's not sore. Got ointment to put in her and Ella's eyes, and drops for myself too.

• Ella is 15 weeks old tomorrow, she's getting so big, I can't stop smooching her and our fave thing to do these days is to get her to laugh, such a beautiful sound!  Naps are a bit of a struggle, often she only catnaps for 20-30 minutes at a time, and by the afternoon she's overstimulated, overtired and super fussy and impossible to calm and get to sleep...

• My dad paid some money into my account for me, Mia and Ella. Such a nice surprise. Thinking to put it towards some clothes for us all - next year's sizes for the two girlies, and as a reward when I lose my 10kg!

• I'm so, so glad winter is almost over!

• Wyn is enjoying his craft-beer brewing a lot, actually such a cool hobby for a guy to have. He does it really well and everyone is so impressed with his beer!

• It's Mia's 4th birthday in just over 6 weeks' time, can't believe it, think I'm in denial! Seriously need to start some party-planning, absolutely no idea yet as to where, what, who, how, eeeeek!

• My business needs a bit of a boost, winter is always a quiet time, but I really need to make a plan to get more feet in.

• I did my first ever yoga class last week, and really enjoyed it.  The full-body stretching workout, as well as the visualisation, spiritual healing and positive affirmations that the instructor does was really enlightening and empowering.  Will definitely do that again.

• Am feeling a strong urge to spring clean specific areas of the house that are so cluttered, but time just doesn't allow it at the moment...

• I bought a box of hair colour to do DIY hair colour again. Never comes out the colour on the box, and never as nice as a salon treatment - but at 1/10th of the price of a salon treatment, I'm gonna do it myself! Once again - when time allows me to!

• Today we had an earth tremor, it was quite scary to experience, goodness.

That's pretty much us in a nutshell - will do a photo update soon, and hopefully not be absent from the blog for such a long time again!
xx