Have you ever wanted to find the 'pause' button for real life. Sometimes I just feel as though life is whizzing past my ear like a bullet from a gun. Wouldn't it be great if you could just slow things down a little and feel like you've had the time to properly absorb every precious second?
This blog for example. It's now probably over a year since I've sat down and written anything meaningful which means that precious moments of our life which seem insignificant at the time have not been recorded and these small moments which, bring a smile if recalled may now be buried in the depths of the psyche never to raise their head again. The fleeting moments which make an imprint on another do not even surface when someone reminiscing asks the question 'ooh, do you remember the time when....?'
There have been several pretty significant moments in our lives since I last wrote properly. I personally hit a birthday milestone last year which was celebrated by a surprise trip to Oz for the whole family and a stay with one of my dearest friends at her home in Perth.
The boys have been doing really well with their sports and school and have even picked up some awards.
The biggest change in our lives though happened ten weeks and 1 day ago (to be precise). On the 15th January this year our family grew not only in number but also by eostrogen count. On that day baby number 4 (SC) made her way into the family with the force of an out of control tornado! Several extra ultrasound scans had prepared us for the fact that she was going to be as big, if not bigger than the others, but not that she was going to be a she! With the tummy measurements growing at a rate we kinda presumed that another boy was on his way to Station House, but not only was she a girl, she was also bigger than any of her brothers had been at 10lb 2oz. Oocha doesn't begin to cover it!
Our lives have been turned upside down and we have been thrust back into the throws of life with a newborn and thr trial and tribulations that come along for the ride. You'd think that we'd be old hands at it now, but this feels very, very new again. It feels like an age ago since I'd changed a nappy and CC was just at the stage of independance, getting his own breakfast, dressing himself and fastening his own seatbelt (I can't stress what a big deal this is) and that - topped with starting school after the summer makes the impact on our lives of having another wee dependant soooo much more monumental.
The endless feeding broken only by short spells of changing nappies, walking the floor with a crying bundle and the odd power nap has resorted the last couple of months to a sheer blur. Hence the reason for the title of the post. I had romantic ideals of these first few weeks and envisioned lovely photo sessions, detailed blog posts and lots of records of each little development and milestone, but this has not come to fruition. I have no recollection of when she had her first smile, or when she let me sleep for more than two hours (if she even has!) or when she fleetingly found her thumb a happily suckled on it for a few seconds. I have no physical record of just how much love her brothers have outpoured to her, so few pictures or film to capture those moments where they can't hide the love they have for her in their expressions.
UPDATE: Argh. I started an update a couple of nights ago only to have the power die and lose it all!
the jist being that it is now 11 weeks + 6 and therefore the point has been proven regarding the virtual impossibility of finishing a blog, capturing those magical moments and retrospectively laughing as you read about the frustrations and hair ripping moments which at the time seem like the worst things in the world (oh how I'll laugh......!) One irony being this after I have just spent an hour trying to get Miss SC down for a nap which will most likely last 20 minutes!
Anyways, we've (I've) had some minor progress with SC. She is now sleeping in her own bed in the evening 90% of the time and because I'm feeling more refreshed I'm finding the energy to sit up and feed her and return her to her own mattress. The breakthrough is that she is mostly going straight back to sleep which gives me those extra precious minutes of sleep. Swings and roundabouts!
She has also now had a few nights in a gro bag. This came about after a frantic 3am shopping venture on Amazon buying swaddle pods and dummies (I lost the one and only one we had as she'd rejected it after a few days and hadn't needed on for a few weeks) whilst having one of those rip your hair out moments trying to get her back to sleep after she'd drained every last ounce of milk from me and still wanted more! I would get her tucked in, stick my finger in her mouth and then be rendered useless as she thrashed her chubby legs about and kicked off the covers. My plan was to pin down the arms/legs causing the blanket removal which left her cold and awake, and to replace my finger with a suitably molded silicon contraption so I could be catching some much needed zeds whilst she thrashed and suckled her way back to sleep.....however in the interim I re-introduced the rejected gro-bag to at least make sure she was kept warm until the other survival items arrived via the more attractive looking (each time he delivered another 'miracle product') postman*. She seemed more content (warm) but awoke for each feed in an awkward diagonal position across her cot with her head no longer on her 'flat head' pillow *gasp* so I rectified it the following night with rolled up towels under her sheet acting like bolsters on either side of her squirmy wee body (pretty much re-creating the 'Sleepyhead' pod which I'd just sold that day for $50)
It turns out that she's rather taken to her wee sleeping bag with arm holes - to the point I think I may be returning the said items as their miracle properties may no longer be required. Goal posts once again moved.
Two days ago the first package arrived which contained (along with some other goodies which may have fallen into the virtual basket - such as a wireless trigger for my camera which will be used in those fantastical photography sessions!) the dummies and the 'armless' version of the swaddle pod - essentially a peanut shaped straight jacket for wriggle meisters who fling off their deftly swaddeld muslin in a style of which houdini would be proud. Armed with the dummy, that very afternoon I set off upstairs with SC to attempt putting her down for an 'actual afternoon nap' (as in not an enforced one due to being wedged in the car seat and driven to whichever destination has been dictated by whichever of her big brothers having an 'activity' to be at or a nursery/school pick up**) Unbelievably I laid her tired little head down, popped in the dummy in, she suckled, spat it out once done and then promptly slept for about an hour and a half!!! Woo bloody hoo. I used the time to clear the wee piles of crap which had started to engulf the livingroom (mostly my doing) baby stuff, dog stuff, toy stuff, papers for filing etc etc and by the time BFS returned from his 2 1/2 hour pounding of the cross trainer at the gym a chilled out me was sat calmly feeding the well rested baby in a war free zone. CC and I were bonding over 'that programme with Rachel in it' (I had for a split second thought proudly that he had requested I tune into Countdown, however it seems that his dads love of re-runs of Friends has made an impression on this just turned 5 year old). All was good at Station House.
I would love to think that one day I will revisit the moments and memories and imprint them on the WWW for eternity, but I fear that by deduction of the fact that it has taken almost two weeks to write this, that it will not be. Unless my brain is still fully functioning in my latter years and I decide to write my (by then somewhat elaborated) memoirs!
* If you ever happen to chance upon a meet with my postie then you'll see just how much these items were anticipated!
** It is to be noted that the luxury of an attempted 'actual afternoon nap' is only possible due to the presence of BFS as he wasn't at 'real work' (on the oil rig) or 'other work' (extra days required during his leave) or during holidays - when two of the four kids are in fact at their Grandma's (cough)
