Happenings 28.7.18
* written over the month of July.
DOING: sitting in bed with a cup of peppermint tea and one of Joan's carob bears. She was asleep at 6:30 tonight, after a long day playing with her Nana KK (my Mum). Ben's still at work, it's a late one for him tonight.
HEARING: the wind. Today is was cold + gloriously sunny, then it became cold + rainy + windy. This winter has been one of the coldest, and we're all feeling it. I enjoy this season, with all the cozy socks and curries, but I am so sincerely excited for warmth, bare feet and summer dresses.
READING: The Whole Brain Child and Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth. I'd like to throw some fiction in the mix, too, but I really want to finish these books, and these days I barely get through five pages before falling asleep.
WEARING: lately I've had the same uniform pretty much every day: maternity leggings from Cotton On, big jumpers and cozy socks.
DRINKING: a peppermint tea.
EATING + COOKING: lots of eggs, nut butter or avocado toast, quinoa bowls with legumes, pasta and smoothies. So, same as always. I've been wanting to make some recipes that aren't in my usual routine (like ragu and fish pie), but it's been such a busy month I've just fallen back to the familiar. Hmmm what else... we've been snacking on jellies using this gelatin. And I've been loving citrus fruit, kiwi and pears. Joan and I have also done a lot of baking - cookies, cake, banana bread and brownies. Baking and then eating the finished product, warm from the oven, is one of our most favourite activities to do together.
WANTING: our bathroom renovation to be completely finished. We still have a few little things to do before we can fully use it all - like get the shower screen and mirror put in. We have had some baths, though, and I am in LOVE with our new tub. Pictures to come.
LOOKING: for new towels. I wasn't going to get new ones for the bathroom, as we have plenty already, but then I saw it all come together and knew I needed one specific colour to bring all the elements together. I don't want to pay full price, though, so we're googling and waiting and watching.
DECIDING: what to make for dinner tomorrow night. Maybe it's because it's the end of the day and I'm a little tired, but that's the biggest decision I can think of right now. Oh, shoot! I was supposed to figure out where I wanted to hang the toilet roll holder before our builder arrives tomorrow. That's probably a more important decision. I'll go do that now.
ENJOYING: how big this belly is getting! With Joan, I never got too big or felt super uncomfortable. This time around I am much, much bigger - so I expect I will start to feel enormous soon. Right now, though, it's awesome. I adore looking down at my belly when I'm in the shower and seeing my stretched skin and all the veins...it sounds weird typing it out now, but it's truly amazing and I just love it.
WATCHING: I'm sort of at a loss with what to watch lately. I finished season 2 of The Handmaid's Tale (oomf what a season finale! I totally understand why she did what she did, as I kept thinking of Joan and what I'd do) and all the season of Call the Midwife that are on Netflix. I've started re-watching This Is Us from the beginning with Ben, who hasn't seen it before and is actually really enjoying it. We also plan on watching Nanette on Netflix together. But I don't have anything that I can watch when Ben is working late, which is often.
BUYING: those towels. And a mud kitchen for Joan's third birthday! We were hoping to buy a cubby house but man, they're expensive! So we'll wait on that one.
PLANNING: Joan's third birthday. We're not going to have a big party this year, just a dinner with family on her actual birthday, which is a Monday. Joan and I will spend the day cooking and baking a cake with sprinkles, which she calls "simples" - "I want a simple cake, mummy!". We will also probably go to a cafe for a meal - maybe croissants for breakfast! And the day, before Ben and I plan on taking her out to the city for an adventure and lunch at a restaurant.
CRAVING: smoothies, peanut butter toast, quinoa bowls, banana bread and pears. Wow, that was easy and fun to write.
LOVING: how interested Joan is in the birth of her sibling. Whenever we have a bath together, she goes into total midwife mode and asks me to pretend to push out the baby. I don't know where she gets it all from, we've only read her one book about babies and it's not particularly descriptive. It's almost as though she instinctively knows what to do. She's even been checking my breasts to make sure the milk comes in, just like how the midwives did in the hospital when I'd given birth to her.
SAVOURING: the dates we've been going on as a family of three. Joan loves eating out at restaurants, as do Ben and I, and she is such an easy car traveller these days (which she wasn't for the first 18 months of her life), so we've been making the most of it with dinners in the city.
PLAYING: Joan's favourite thing to do is pretend to be a gymnast who visits a gymnastics class (as the guest of honour, I suppose) and has "all the boys and girls watch her". She'll walk along the top of our couch, pretending it's a balance beam, and then dismount. And as she does this, she insists that we refer to her as Simone Biles.
FEELING: ready. We're slowly preparing for this next stage and I feel like we're right where we need to be in that regard, if that makes sense. It's a good feeling. Joan has been having lots of feelings this month. Typical toddler stuff - feeling things intensely and letting it all out, as she learns how to handle big emotions. Being patient is hard at the moment , as is having to wear warm clothes when she just wants to be in a singlet like Whitney Houston on her album cover (for real, that's what she says). Anyway, she's also at the stage where she doesn't always have a daytime nap, which means she's more prone to feeling out of control and having dramatic scenes when those big emotions come on. I expect she also recognises that my belly is getting bigger and change is coming. Sometimes she only wants me to comfort her, and I think she's testing to see whether things are still the same. So I'm just being there for her, trying to encourage her to be patient without getting impatient myself, and letting her release all those emotions and feel heard and safe and secure and loved.
Happenings posts inspired by Pip.
Heidi xo