Back to work...back to a nasty reality

My cousin once said to me that she decided to become a full-time mom after she realised that she couldn't be 100% engineer and 100% mom...  I now understand what she meant.

I returned to work on 26 November 2012, and what a hectic time for me.  The first day was not SO bad, since Linmari was with me.  Mind you, she was with me for the first 3 days!  And when I had to drop her off at her auntie on the Thursday, that wasn't so bad, either.  Rather, what got to me was having to get my girl ready and dressed at 06h00 in the morning when she was still FAST asleep, just so that we could be on time for work.  And the following Monday (2 December 2012) I had to go to work with my little one that was sick (teething is not so much fun!).  It broke my heart that she and I could not lie in bed all day, with her simply feeding and sleeping the miserable feeling away.

People have told me I would get used to not having my little one with me in the mornings, and that at least I have a half-day job so that I get to see Linmari more than the average working-parent.  But that's little consolation when I know that Linmari's CUTEST time is in the mornings, and that she sleeps most of her afternoon away!  I never thought I would enjoy being a stay-at-home mommy THIS much, but the 3 1/2 months with her at home has taught me valuable lessons:

• I have learned that housework is not such a dread (since I now manage my house on a daily basis, not a once-a-week-let's-quickly-sorta-clean-up-the-house-basis.  
• I have learned that every moment with my little girl is precious, and NO ONE can replace the time that I have lost with her, EVER. 
• Being a stay-at-home Mom is a FULL TIME JOB!
• You will feel guilt over not having done certain things with your child during the day, in my case I often-times worry that I haven't played enough or stimulated enough, even though I do this at every possibly opportunity!
• Being a Mom is more rewarding than being a career woman!
• Seeing your daughter smile at you first thing when she wakes up in the morning is irreplaceable.
• Experiencing your daughter's milestones with her is amazing - she really is growing up!

Our school broke up for Christmas-holidays on 12 December, and it has been LOVELY to spend all that time with my daugther!  She is beyond precious and being able to see her 24/7 is such a blessing!  We are currently fighting a bout of sniffles / hoarseness and snotty nose, but hey, we'll survive!

 See, even when she's sick she still finds the time to be silly!  She discovered yesterday how to suck her bottom lip...too cute!

Oh, and one last thing.  My cousin sent me the BumGenius AIO Version 4 Diapers (FIVE OF THEM!) from America.  WOW!!!  Now not even my husband can tell me he's struggling with cloth diapering!  They're amazing, and I'm seriously considering buying 5 more (just have to save up some money first).

Here's Linmari wearing one of them:

 They're super-soft, HIGHLY absorbent and very easy to wash! (And they're Noodle Colour, for those interested.)

I have to go and finish my Christmas baking, and then do some laundry, dishes and general housework.

One last picture:

 

My niece turned 7 in November, and she decided she wanted a Tangled-themed party.  Her Mommy did all the homework and then asked me to make her a Tangled-wig.  I found this tutorial and was SUPER-impressed by it!  It really was easy to use and helped me to make the perfect wig! For those of you that are still at a loss as to what to make for your daughter / niece / girl-cousin as a nice gift for Christmas, this wig should most definitely do the trick!  It's easy (PLEASE follow instructions carefully) and VERY beautiful!

Growing up too quickly

My little girl is not so little anymore :*(  But I enjoy every single day with her! 

I only have 4 1/2 more weeks of maternity leave left and it saddens me to think that soon these carefree days will be something of the past.  I think I'll be photo-blogging a lot more often now, since it's easier to bring my thoughts across.


Cloth diapering has been an interesting experience... as soon as I put the first cloth diaper on Linmari, I broke down into tears.  She literally has NO bum (unlike my side of the family who all sport serious behinds), and I was getting used to that. As soon as she had the diaper on, she had one really BIG bum!  It made me cry. SERIOUSLY.  This then cascaded into me being sad because now that she was wearing cloth diapers she would no longer have a tiny bottom which I could pat, and I don't want her to grow up too quickly, and I don't want to have to give her to someone else to look after her, and then I suddenly decided I don't want to go back to work!  Thus, a very interesting experience this has been so far!  But on the more serious side of things, I have found the prefolds to work beautifully for her sized body right now.  The flat diapers worked well, but her legs were so abducted at the hips I didn't quite like the sight of it.  We'll give it another go when she's slightly bigger.  I have not yet tried the AIO Fancy Pants diaper, we'll try that at a later stage.  My husband still doesn't get the hang of it (folding prefolds, how hard can it be? ;-P ), and I must admit that we still use disposable diapers on Thursdays and Fridays, as well as when we go for LOOOOONG rides, because she tends to e.x.p.l.o.d.e on us on those days only.

Check out how big her bum looks here!!!! (This is her very proud 9 year old cousin)

I also spoke to Thinus about breastfeeding long before this little one's arrival, and made him promise that he would not allow me to give up on it before I've fed for at least 6 weeks.  What a precious promise that turned out to be.

This is what it looked like when I breastfed on day 2:

If it hadn't been for my doula, Melissa Jacobs, midwife, Karen van der Merwe, mom and husband's ongoing support, I might just have given up on breastfeeding. Melissa told me at Linmari's first feed "Never settle for a bad latch. NEVER."  And again, Melissa said to me on day 4 post-birth: "Ronél, when you have to work so much harder at continuing breastfeeding, you will always cherish it and probably also breastfeed for a longer period of time because you know how precious it is".  After SEVERAL weeks it went better (6 weeks), and there are still days that it hurts. So Mommies-to-be, PLEASE don't give up on breastfeeding.  I had looked forward to having that bond with my child, and had to work really hard on correct latching (Linmari is a lazy-latcher), distracting myself when the pain got a bit too much.  I watched a LOT of Grand Design-episodes during those first few weeks of breast feeding, just to make the pain more bearable.  I was systemically treated for thrush, since the pain I experienced was similar to that of thrush in the nipples.  But the pain has not really gone away, I just seem to have gotten used to it.  Another possible cause is vasospasm of the nipples (as stated by my doula and midwife), which you can read up on here.  I now love breastfeeding, even though it still hurts at times, and won't exhange it for anything in the world!  Linmari also tends to get VERY excited when she realises that she's going to be breastfed, something that makes me very happy!  I hope to be able to exclusively breastfeed for as long as possible (read: about 9 months).

Pajama-drill has been ... interesting.  We've been spat on, vomitted on, peed and pooped on many a time during the night!  Especially in the first few weeks.  But I also found it difficult to fall asleep again in the first few weeks since I just wanted to stare at my beautiful daughter and her gorgeous Daddy whilst they were fast asleep!  

 See? Totally adorable at 2 AM!

The first 5-6 weeks were the hardest, since Linmari often swallowed wind (lazy-latcher plus fast let-down equals LOTS OF WINDS!) and it took forever to burp her.  Thinus was on burping duty, what a joy!  One night, out of pure desperation, we took Linmari for a drive around the highway since it was 4 AM and she had been struggling to fall asleep since 01h30 AM.  We were beyond tired, and just wanted her to sleep so that WE could sleep (plus we knew the car lulled her to sleep).  It worked like a charm, but once we got home and I was busy unbuckling her, the seatbelt suddenly shot up, startling her and waking her up...SCREAMING... so we buckled her again and got right back into the car to take another drive.  Finally at 05h10 AM we could go to bed.  Thank goodness for a wonderful husband who was willing to do this for me.  Another wonderful thing is that Thinus had 4 weeks of paid leave directly after Linmari's birth, allowing us optimal bonding time as a family.

Okay, that's me for now.  I hope to be blogging more often about this wonderful thing called "Motherhood"!

(Linmari and her Godmother being silly together!)

Announcing the arrival of Linmari Kahlan

On 11 August 2012 at 21h53

LINMARI KAHLAN

was born

weighing in at 3.5 kg (7.71 lbs)

and measuring 51 cm (20.07 inches) in length.

It was a waterbirth with a midwife, doula, my mom and husband with me :-)

She was her Daddy's BIGGEST birthday gift (we did not induce, PROMISE)!  I could not have bought him a better gift!

She has quickly gained weight, and looks rather different at 1 month!

Spring Day (1 September 2012) in South Africa was celebrated with a new dress (actually a 3-6 month sleeveless top).

Linmari and her Daddy have the most hilarious conversations!

She loves her cousins, especially when she can use their shoulders as a brace for her chin!

And because she's a girl, Mommy gets to make her pretty dresses, and her aunty gets to hold her a lot so that Mommy can take photo's of those pretty dresses!

40 weeks and 2 days..... and 2 years since you died

Today I'm already 2 days past my due date (not surprising for a first baby).  I've already spent two weeks on maternity leave, finishing off Jellybaby's solid teak cot (with the help of my brother, sister-in-law, her father and my husband).  I still have to load some pictures, but today I first have to sand one railing and varnish it with its final coat.

SOOOOOO much has happened in the past few months.  We've moved into our new house (really a groundfloor apartment with a nice sized garden) and tried to sort out Jellybaby's nursery. ALMOST THERE!!!!  We're also now patiently awaiting this little one's arrival, juggling it with picking up my father-in-law at the airport arriving from Cape Town tonight.  He's hoping that he'll be a granddad by then :-)  And then there's our holiday to Kwa-Zulu Natal to look forward to!!!!  Oh, but before then Thinus is also celebrating his birthday on Saturday - SCORE!  My mom reckons that Jellybaby will come either tomorrow or Saturday - we would prefer today.

Today also marks 2 years since my brother's sudden death.  This morning I cried when I realised that I'm now exactly 10 days older than he was when he died.  I think I also was half expecting that I would go into labour during the night and have the celebration of new life on hand as opposed to just thinking about my brother.  My sadness did not prevail, and I'm now calm.  I miss my brother, and I'm sad that he can't share this time with me.  But I'm SOOOO grateful that he's with Jesus and can enjoy all the riches of Heaven!  What a blessing that is!  When I mourn, it's over my loss.  But thank GOD that he was not lost, that he served Jesus Christ as his Saviour!  Because of that I can now rejoice even on a day like today!

It's FREEZING cold in Johannesburg, and we even got SNOW yesterday!  I played in the snow alongside my nephew like a small kid! Later in the day we built a snow man (my sister-in-law made sure we didn't pass up on this opportunity).  Thinus and I even went for a walk last night (albeit to try and see whether or not we could induce this child!) and had such lovely broccolli and bacon soup for dinner!

Today I am planning on making roly-poly apricot pudding to beat this cold weather.  NOTHING like warm pudding on a cold night!  And then also maybe try and catch up on my lost sleep.

Hoping that today is the day that we get to meet Jellybaby!!!!

Blessings to you all!

We are moving!!!

We have been looking for a house since August 2011, and what a mission it turned out to be! But finally, on March 3rd this year, we found a home :-)

I had a LOOOOOONG list to be fulfilled, including that it should not be a sectional title, must have at least TWO doors going outside, a garden, a double kitchen sink, a window over that kitchen sink, a shower for my husband, at least 3 bedrooms, a garage....the list goes on. Most important was that it would be the most affordable house in the best area.

What we found was: a sectional title, 2 bedroom flat with a garden. It was affordable and in the best area. I've made peace that we need to get our foot in the market. And the flat was really the way to do it.

SOOOOOO, today after church we picked up the keys to our new flat! After nearly 5 years of marriage, we now can call a place our home. GOD has been ever-faithful in providing the funds for the 5% deposit that we had to put down, as well as all the lawyers' fees that went along with buying a house.

Soon we'll be able to start renovating Jellybaby's solid teak cot (BIG SMILE!), and to make up the nursery. Pictures to follow soon, promise! Tonight we're spending our first night in our home - on a blow-up mattress. We are just too impatient to start our new life there to wait for our bed to come next week Saturday. Oh, and we're taking our kettle and microwave oven with to make supper. I should probably also start to pack a bag so that we'll have clothes for tomorrow!

The excitement is very tangible in our household right now. I'm just quickly resting whilst Thinus carries out some of the essentials that must go with tonight. WHOOPEE!!!!

Praise be to GOD for providing in our needs!

PS: I even have a convection oven now! Truly a blessing from above!