Stuff I Wish I Knew Before Having a Baby

1. A good water bottle that you can open one handed is a great thing for a breast feeding Mum
2. Shower curtains make excellent drop sheets for craft, saves getting glitter, paint and anything else all over your floors
3. Swimming nappies are just for catching poop, do not let your baby wear them in the car
4. When a bubba says I have a tummy ache or I have a sore back it can mean I want to poo or wee
5. Art with kids is about the process not the finished product, learn not to be a perfectionist
6. A great way to stop a kid from tantrumming is just to ask them lots of questions "What's over there, who is coming home later, what should we have for dinner, what toy should we take to bed". They get so interested in the answers they forget that they were upset
7. The words "It's going to be ok, everything is going to be alright" when taught to a loving partner can stop you from going crazazy
8. There is 24 hour nurse on call, 24 GP on call and also a 24 Maternal & Child Health Nurse on call in Australia provided by various state and federal governments. They can be a comforting when you're concerned about something but not so concerned that you think you need to go to a GP
9. Black food dye in cake icing can make poo go fluorescent green (see point seven). In fact anything that kids eat can make their poo change colour and as long as they're doing poos easily and regularly there is generally no problem
10. More about poos, when babies are breastfed they don't need to poo as often because it's such a complete and amazing baby food for them. When they start to eat solids or have formula then they poo more often.
11. Pawpaw makes babies poo smell nice
12. Read widely but take what everyone says with a grain of salt and do what works for you, all kids are different and need different things

Disclaimer: This stuff is true for me but may not be true for you so don't spam me because you don't agree, you're welcome to your opinion.

Our Christmas Day

We are not amused

Just kidding :) It's all good!

Helping Mum out in the Kitchen

I said to her, can you help Mumma by popping this into the bowl and she proceeded to put each piece into the bowl going 'pop, pop, pop'. Things are pretty literal when you're almost two. It looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but she did proceed to throw the majority of the rest of those veggies on the floor when I ducked to the loo. I couldn't be mad though, she was just entertaining herself and it did look pretty. 

Two steps forward, one step back.

At 12.25am (that's right in the middle of the night) the Queensland parliament passed a law that diminished the rights of Gay and Lesbian couples. The original aim was to scrap civil partnerships but instead they were watered down by being renamed as registered relationships and having the state-sanctioned ceremony option revoked.  It was said that the 'state-sanctioned ceremony' was considered threatening to religious groups because it was trying to emulate marriage. OF COURSE IT WAS TRYING TO EMULATE MARRIAGE! It is marriage. People who love each other want to make that official in front of their friends, the state and their god (if they have one).

I feel the deepest sense of outrage that in this day and age that Gay and Lesbian people are having their rights as human diminished due to the fact that they love someone of the same sex. If the same laws were being applied to people based on height or race then everyone would have their righteous indignation hats on and it just wouldn't be allowed to occur.

My friends who are in same sex relationships are just the same as my friends who are in hetero relationships. They work, they play, they fall in love,they are community minded, they struggle to pay their bills, to be fitter, to make the right life decisions. My gay friends make my life better, they are the some of the kindest, funniest, loving, friendliest and delightful people that I know and it saddens me greatly that their rights are downgraded by the government, that they should be made to feel lesser because they love someone with the same bits that they have.

It embarrasses me, as a Queenslander, as an Australian and as a human.

I hope that in my lifetime I get to see every Australian share the same rights with regards to marriage. I would see that as a great advancement for humanity.

Making Playdough with Mum and Nanna

Warm Feet Mumma

This will tickle the fancy of handknit lovers and baby lovers alike. Lucia is learning so fast, in a learning curve that you can't believe until you are in close proximity to a child and can observe it for yourself. She has a plethora of words and adds new ones every day. At least two or three that I hear her say and who knows how many others that she uses to other people. Today she was looking at my hand knit jitterbug socks and I said aren't they soft and squishy and we were squishing them for awhile and she said "Warm Feet Mumma". Truer words could not be said, because there is nothing as nice as slipping a pair of handknitted socks on to your feet for warm toasty toes (okay okay ugg boots are pretty warm too, but not as pretty).