Hello there poppets! / L Plate Mama

 Dear God / Goddess / Universal Spirit Thank you for my beautiful newborn. Thank you for the ability to bring children into this world. Thank you for the safe arrival of our little boy even if it didn’t go quite as planned. Thank you for the accident of his birth and mine that we were born so privileged to have access to fantastic health care. Thank you for my husband; for being the best support I could imagine. Thank you for compassion and professionalism of all the wonderful midwives, my goodness do those women love babies! Thank you for my littlest one’s beautiful long fingers, his pure clean skin - so fair it’s really is transparent, his almost invisible tiny eyelashes, the pudgy pads of his feet, the ever growing creases in his chubby thighs, his deep dark blue eyes, his ‘ warm ’ (hairdresser speak for ginger) hair. For every tiny little bit of him. Thank you for his little grunty noises, his squeaky noises, even his screeching noises. Thank you for the...

Holidays! What an wonderful privilege to be able to take a holiday, visit somewhere new, maybe somewhere many miles away with a different culture, language and cuisine. Soaking up the differences, taking a break from ‘your’ world. Wonderful for the adult mind, but my goodness how mind blowing for little ones!  My wee man and I have been very lucky in his short life to go home to the UK twice and visit family and friends in New Zealand. We’ve taken these trips just us two, leaving the big Mr with our petimals in sunny Melbourne. In May (many months ago now, I know) the three of us went on holiday to Bali with our friends, another family of three. You may be thinking “why are you writing about this now?” – the reason is this trip had a massive and ongoing influence on Chops, and before the arriving of his brother or sister I wanted to record it. Our wee man of 2 and three quarters, not only had his mum and dad but his best buddy to go on a massive adventure....

Soooo this little pudding is nearly ready to come out into the world. Three weeks to go. Three weeks: 21 days: 504 hours. Counting, me? Not much.  Of course this is a little human being we are talking about here, and as the midwife said we don’t even know what triggers labour. The mysteries of our recreation are plentiful, so the pudding could come anytime really (!) until November 4… (I think they only let you go 10 days over).  Are we ready? We are getting there J This time last week the bubs room was piled high with different sized clothes, assorted bulky toys and the remnants of wedding stuff, that I worked so long and hard on, my hoarding tendencies will not allow me to throw away (yep yep I’ve kept every hand written, hand ripped, cut and stamp name card). I hadn’t packed the hospital bag, I hadn’t hired the TENS machine or washed the linen, bibs, hats, wraps… My beautiful and industrious parents in-law came down and in what took most of ...

Is short tempered the same as bad tempered? What do you reckon? If there is a difference between them, I don’t think it matters because I am probably both.  I am homesick, 32 weeks pregnant, sore, snotty, tired and probably a bit of a growling grump. After seven years living in this wonderful land Downunder, I would have hoped that homesickness is something I would have done the “hard yards” on, and wouldn’t experience (much) anymore. I think it maybe a bit more than homesickness; I miss my mum, and she’s been gone for a good long time. I may not even really miss her, but the idea of her, or the idea of a mum. God bless my Dad, he is the best, but he hasn’t carried a wriggling growing small human inside his middle. When I moan at him, and I do, I worry him. I hear it in his voice, and he is too far away at the end of the Skype or Facetime call, in a different time zone on the other side of the world to know I am alright really, I just want to tell him all the ba...