Baby Surgery

This is kind of old news for most of you, but Jaren had surgery back in March and we had to sleep over at the Mater Hospital so they could keep him attached to all these monitors. (The hide-a-bed-chair below is where I slept...good times.) He had two inguinal hernias and I was grateful that we caught them early on and for all of the doctors that helped us find and take care of them. 

My GP was awesome especially and when she found out that we were concerned she instantly ordered us ultrasounds to find out for sure if he had the hernias. I really felt like she was going to bat for us and it was reassuring.

Also two thumbs up for all the really great people at Mater Hospital and how great they were to us and how quickly they got him into surgery. You know people in the states are really anti socialized medicine but we've really been blessed here with our medical care! 

I felt pretty calm going into his surgery - before hand was harder when he seemed like he was in pain and there wasn't much we could do about it. It was hard not to second guess things. Are you still hungry or is it those mean hernias? Are you tired or is it just those hernias?...etc. You can imagine. Poor little boy. But the surgery went really well and he did great. The following pictures are him the next morning. Obviously he's not in that much pain, or he's just really excited to play with all those fun cords.

 

(So seriously I really want to blog but when I try it drives me bonkers. The photos won't go where I want them to and draft never looks like the preview and neither look like the final post and I spend all this time trying to fit things in and they look different anyway which makes me frustrated. At times I think I should stop trying but then I see the published post and the format bugs me so I go back and try and fiddle with it until it looks less stupid. Has everyone just accepted that it won't cooperate or am I not doing something right? For example I kept clicking on a photo and then would click on it to be centered but instead it would just disappear. Now why would it do that? I try to drag photos around but they rarely will follow and then end up in weird places. The writing will look one way on the draft and then have big spaces or breaks on the published post. I end up just posting to see what it really looks like and then re-editing it till it's finally decent, or less annoying. I think I would be able to post a lot more if I didn't have to waste so much time on just trying to get the layout of my post to do what I want. Any tips???)

THIRTY & FLIRTY & THRIVING :)

Goodbye to the 

Roaring 20's 

and Hello to the  

Awesome THIRTIES!!!

I like to make up little rhymes for each year that comes ahead. I started this for my friend Lizzie I think when she turned 28 (and-oh-so-great) and I was 25-and-alive (which often makes me think of the voice in the back of my head, "number 5 is ALIVE"). 26 was a bit of a lame-o rhyme (26- a-whole-lot-of-kicks). The next year was probably my favorite: 27 -a-little-slice-of-heaven. I told that to my students at the time and they'd bring it up a lot which I thought was funny. 28 you already know and as my profile states- currently  I am 29-and-oh-so-fine (at least for the next 7+ hours). 

But now I get to the big-one: THIRTY & FLIRTY & THRIVING
Yes, I do believe I started doing these rhymes when the movie 13 going on 30 came out, or perhaps I had just seen that movie around the time but that was the saying that stuck with me and  I always thought it would be a fun year/saying.

In my inner-mind I pictured myself saying it curled up in a ball and rocking back and forth just like the 13 yr old - Jennifer Garner. Sadly many people do the opposite of that movie character, they love being young, but then when they hit 30 (or probably any big decade or landmark age) they then want to lock themselves up in the closet rocking back and forth and wishing they were younger. Ridiculous! That's not how I feel at all. I'm excited to be 30, flirty and thriving. [Hmm, does the "flirty" part seem odd or out of context? But I've got an amazing husband to channel all my love and flirty energy to, plus you can flirt with danger (not really the goal here but you've heard the expression) or flirt with life, with adventure, with aspirations.]

When I was young (maybe even 13...but probably younger) I remember hearing many adults, and face it - many women, whine about turning older and getting older and not wanting to celebrate their birthdays because they were just getting older and it always seemed so silly to me. First of all your choices are 1- get another year older or 2- Die. Really what's there to whine about? So if you are going to go for the first option you are naturally going to keep getting older and so why not take a day out to celebrate?! 

Celebrate life! Celebrate Experiences! Celebrate Yourself! 

I decided and committed to myself way back then that I would never whine about getting older, that I would love each new birthday as it came and be excited for it and the year ahead. I remember one of my lovely friends (and frankly many people say this) was about to turn some shocking "old age" in her 20's and said how she wished she was turning 18. Seriously? Would you really like to have to go back and do 18 over again? Or 23, or 35 or 52....or whatever your age may be. Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed 18. But I've done 18. To give up everything I've done and learned and be back there again...no thank you. It was great, but so is the age I am.

Now in saying this I will give credit to the fact that decade birthdays do seem harder for people to swallow, and sometimes hitting certain ages and not having met our own or the world's criteria of what we should have done by then makes us feel a little panicked or disappointed, and sometimes health starts to decline and therefore getting older can be a wake-up call of our own mortality and that is hard. Yes it can be hard. But that's no reason not to get cake and presents. :)

I guess I am saying that I do sympathize with the challenges of getting older. And I do feel like it can be a great time for retrospection and growth. But I'm also advocating enjoying each birthday as it comes along and each new year, each new decade, each new stage of life. 

Which leads me to my next thought.

When I turned 20 it was in 2000 (seriously cool to be an 80's-baby). A NEW MILLENNIUM. Hmm, I didn't have pithy little sayings for each new year back then but I was already thinking along those lines when I adopted a saying from my cousin April:

LEAH 

(or put in your name)

OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM!!!

Okay, seriously that was a cool year/saying. :) I was leaving the teenager years and venturing on to adulthood. I came up with a list of things I wanted to "conquer"  - things that I was afraid of or weak at or just wanted to improve on. And if ever I found myself getting discouraged or worried I would shout in my head "Leah of the new millennium!!!" and it would give me courage. Some things were big, some were trivial. What mattered was learning to do and try new things, push myself, grow, progress, celebrate life, celebrate experiences, celebrate myself. 

And it has been a wonderful decade. And wow, pausing to reflect back over it - it was a decade full of life-changing decisions and and steps. Hmmm....perhaps later I'll write a proper farewell of the decade and all the beautiful blessings and stages that it held - but that isn't the motivation of today's post. Today (or tomorrow rather) I want to welcome in the new year with open arms. Thirty and Flirty and Thriving. :) And I'm asking for suggestions to do so. 

I was thinking that I may want to write a list of 30 things to do over this next year (decade???) to celebrate being thirty. Big things (helicopter ride?), to little things (a picnic at this park Varian and I always talk about but never stop at); things to make me grow, things to learn, talents to gain, ways to challenge myself, goals to accomplish, fun experiences to have, places to travel, weaknesses to improve...etc.  Really the list could go on and on. 

So any ideas? Should I just focus on this year? Should I make them all pretty attainable then within that time frame and our present stage of life? (For example there's lots of places I'd like to travel but I'm not expecting to get to them all in just the next 12 months, I also want to have a million kids someday but these things take time...) Should I count things that I already have planned or am already working on? Should I have more than one list, i.e. 30 places to visit nearby. 30 new recipes to master, 30 new songs to play on my violin, 30 short stories/poems to write, 30 new posts to blog...???? Hmmm. I'm not really sure. So I'm open to any suggestions on either things to add to the list or ways to organize it. I've got some things in mind, but would like the input. I've entered into a new stage of life and with it comes so many things to learn and enjoy, and I've been recently wanting to organize myself- my goals and possibilities and interests. 

So tomorrow I get to celebrate a new year 

(and decade) of life 

and I am ready to embrace it!!! 

 No birthday shame here! 

Happy birthday to me. :) 

  

-HAPPY-

 THIRTY & FLIRTY & THRIVING!!!

TWO FIFTY

 We had a barbie at our friends', Chrissy and Nathaniel's house, and he took these great shots for us. The joke is that a salesman came to our door offering a "free" photo shoot. I was skeptical but when I asked how much it would cost just to buy a CD of the pics and was told "two-fifty" I thought, DEAL! So after a painful photo shoot involving a 3 week old baby, a very slow photographer, and really hot humid weather - the result was really awful pictures.



 The main problem being that he was asleep and she kept telling me to wake him up, which then of course would make him cry and so she'd tell me to resettle him which then would put him back to sleep and she'd go back to telling me to wake him up. This cycle repeated until Jaren just became really angry and there was no hope of getting cute shots. But the lady had gone to all that effort and so I felt the least I could do was buy a CD from her.


Imagine my embarrassment when I held out two dollars and fifty cents (in Aussie coins mind you) and learned that she meant two HUNDRED fifty dollars. I mean I did think it was crazy to have such a bargain, but obviously the idea of spending $250 was even more far-fetched. How embarrassing. I laughed and apologized and managed to get her out the door without committing to paying for the CD in installments. I still laugh at myself when I remember this.



I told this story to our friends and promised to now pay that $2.50 to them for taking these photos. And aren't they worth every penny!

Facebook baby album

So it's taken me ALL DAY LONG to filter through photos, scan others, arrange and write comments - but I've finally posted an album on my facebook page with baby pictures. I haven't posted any pictures there since starting this blog so I thought I'd post there first. I have no idea how to post a link (tips?), but I think if you copy and paste that address below you'll be able to see that album. It's a nice long one with with commentary, so I hope you enjoy.
:) Leah

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=1428950388#!/album.php?aid=99621&id=1428950388

Tidbits

Hello again,
So here are a few of the things I had meant to blog about pre-having a baby. Don't worry I think after this I'm mostly caught up and then will start to put cute pictures and stories up about Jaren. I'm resisting the temptation to take new updated photos (of the garden or my ankles - see below) because it's doing things like that which make me continue to put off posting a blog. So what you see is what you get. :)

TIDBIT 1 - SHOWERS

The first tidbit is a few pictures of a surprise baby shower that Varian's Mum (and yes they spell it mum) organized for me with the help of Garby and my cute friends Rachel and Diana. Varian was in on the plot as well and was quite sneaky about the whole thing. I was totally surprised! I can't believe how spoiled we've been by loved ones here and from our friends and family and Green Acres friends back home (They did surprise long distance showers for us). You're all so wonderful and thoughtful. Max and Laree have practically given us our entire nursery set, and so many others have been so generous, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! :)

Yes we played the diaper game - so gross but fun. I did a terrible job at that game, but as you can see I'm getting plenty of chocolate in the dice game, and I had the best guess of how many toilet paper squares my belly had become - any guesses?

TIDBIT 2 - CANKLES

So remember my earlier blog about tacky people. This is an example of karma and it coming back to haunt me. Last summer when I went home for a visit I had dinner with the loveshack girls (aka my old roommates - that was the name of my house) and I very tactlessly overreacted to seeing cute Nancy's pregnant feet. They were so swollen I was shocked (hmm, maybe this is tacky using her name without telling her first). I tried to backpedal but alas the damage was done. So in return the karma fairies cursed me with those beauties you see above. Seriously they hurt so much.

Luckily towards the end of my pregnancy I had finished teaching and was off my feet (who knows how big they might have become otherwise). But one night Varian and I were in the movie theater when I felt my feet expanding...it was creepy. When we got out I was appalled to see how much bigger they had grown during the previous two hours. I took that picture in the bathroom stall. It's a bit blurry because I took the flash off - I didn't want to alarm any of the other women in the restroom at the time. :} The next photo is after Christmas - look at those creases between my ankles and toes. So sad. One of the first things I noticed about my body post-baby was my adorable little ankle bones - seriously I've never appreciated them so much. Ahh, it's good to have my feet back to their original size!

TIDBIT #3 - GREEN THUMBS

All the credit of this one goes to Varian who planted a garden on the side of our house - although I have occasionally helped with the watering. So far the best results have come from our herbs but we have had a few of our own tomatoes and cucumbers. We're still waiting on the zucchini and pumpkins. We also have planted various fruit trees but will probably have to wait a little longer for them to be ready. But we have a lemon tree (very pretty), a mandarin orange tree, off-and-on again banana trees (they keep dying but then after awhile another one shows up in its place), paw-paw trees and a passion fruit vine.

Oh my heavens, this has taken me all day long to finish. How in the world do people blog so often?! Mostly it's the photos that slow me down (and doing it mostly in baby's nap times) but still it's quite an ordeal. Well hopefully though I'll get some baby photos up next.

Catching Up and Happy Holidays!

Hello my lovely family and friends. Baby Jaren is sleeping and although I did try and lay down to nap myself I decided to get up and try and get some blogging done. He's officially one month old and things are getting a bit more settled. I absolutely love him and being a mom. This month has already passed too fast, though it's nice to have things getting a bit more in a routine and to be managing more on little sleep (though we'll see if I actually finish this entry today or if it takes me a few days to do so.) I've been shocked at how hard it is to get things done with a newborn. Oh well! I've not been too stressed out about that. Varian's been amazing and has done so much for us, and frankly sleep has gotten a big priority when possible, and the rest I fit in in little snatches. But look I'm already getting ahead of myself. My goal is to catch up a bit on some of the things that have happened in December and then blog about the biggest news of all...the arrival of our beautiful son! :) So I'll try and stick in a somewhat chronological order.

Christmas:

• TREE

We set up our tree in early November. (No rule about having to wait till after Thanksgiving here, though granted that wouldn't have stopped me anyway. I love having the tree up for as long as possible, and would have kept it up longer this year other than we wanted it done and out of the way before the baby came.) I love our tree. It's progressed even a little since last year and just was so sparkly and beautiful. No - those presents weren't all for us. That's for siblings and cousins and other extended family as well. But also I'm like a little kid who likes to open lots of little presents on Christmas instead of just get one big thing. So I do tend to get lots of little things and wrap them all up separately so there's more to open on Christmas morning.

• STOCKINGS

And the stockings were hung from the tall boy with care...

• CELEBRATIONS

We took advantage of various Christmas activities in Brisbane and Ipswich which were nice. I especially love that they do fireworks here for the holidays. :) I love fireworks! Christmas Eve we went to Max and Laree's for swimming, food and presents. Varian's Mum's family is from Germany and they do all their celebrations the night before.

A rather violent game of chicken-fight, well a series of games that is. The results were debatable but as you can see from this photo, I think Varian had the upper hand.

That darling little angel is Charlie, my "1st cousin-once removed-in-law." I got to play Mary in the nativity play, yes I am a good 20 years older than most of the other participants but I was perfect for the part!

Waking up on Christmas day and opening presents as just the two of us was lovely. Then we went to a Christmas breakfast and then a Christmas lunch with family, topping it off with a swim at the beach. You know as much as I miss a white Christmas, there's something to be said about Christmas in summer.

• FAMILY PARTIES

Chad and Felicity and Co. came to stay with us over the holidays which was so much fun. We keep begging them to move up to Brisbane and they want us to move down to Sydney. In my ideal world all of the Woods/Jeppsons/Astons/Knoths and associated would all move to live within a half-hour's radius from each other and we'd get to bond all of the time. Maybe someday...

In lieu of camping (which worked out well for the 37 week pregnant lady) we did a day trip up to some rock falls and to see the glow worm cave. Really fun day full of wading, rock-sliding, picnics and cliff-jumping (again not for the 37 weeker, but frankly it was just a good excuse. I hate cliff-jumping!)

Yes those glowing blue dots are actual glow worms. SO COOL! There were also glowing mushrooms and plants on the hike out but I don't have pictures of those, but it was breathtaking, Avatar meets Australia. :)

I hope you all had wonderful holidays yourself. For those who we got to spend time with thank you for the great memories. For those we were far away from, you were in our thoughts and prayers and we miss and love you! Merry Christmas all!