Happy half birthday my petite Sabine

Wow the first 3 months crawled and then the next zoomed by! What will the next 6 months bring? Crawling, walking, words (oh i hope its mama over dada otherwise i will never live that one down hehe), more eating, more playing, more cuddles and lot's of love.

Mini Me

My mum had the pleasure of 'choosing' me he he, i am the chosen one, i like to gloat about this secretly behind my brothers back. You see i am the adopted child into the family, i like to think that mum had my brother and then thought...wow hang on, next one needs an upgrade! And Ta da, here i am. I may get killed for saying that if my brother ever reads this, luckily he lives in the UK but i doubt that would stop him from killing me!

So when i was pregnant the husband turned round and said "Sabine will be your first blood line" i had never really thought about that! Someone actually related to me by blood, not adopted...wow! Not that i don't consider my family not my family, i don't know any different to the next kid and their family. But needless to say, pretty special really.

When the monster arrived, we had no idea who she looked like. The husband and i had jokes about which bit of us was what the monster got, the husband got pale skin and farts hehe. And then mum sent me some pictures of me when i was little...i have a mini me!



Me...many moons ago!



All the fun at the park

We live not far from Tahunanui Beach, there is a great park there for kids. There is even a small area for littlies away from the bigger kids stuff which is great! Now that the monster is nearly 6 months she has quite taken to going on the swings and most of all an old school suspended seesaw thingamajig! I was amazed to see she held on all by herself and even though i was holding her she was sitting up all by herself and grinning from ear to ear. Hmm, i think i may have a daredevil on my hands in a few more months! Anyway, i am always on the hunt for things to do with my monster instead of her just sitting around doing not much, or my pet hate of parked in front of the TV (although this does have its place when you really need to get something done!). So a short walk in the buggy to the park, a bit of a play on the seesaw and off we trot home (and sometimes past the cafe for muma to grab a takeaway coffee!). Sabine always sleeps well after a bit of fresh sea air and some great play time, and of course one happy muma!

Baby wearing update

Results are in...you can tell by the look on her face, it's a hit!

I didn't have it on quite right in the pic (her arms should be under the strap) but it was so easy to pop on, comfy and light! So big tick from me too! Were going to test it out on a longer journey to the beach this afternoon to walk the dog!

Getting back to fitness (and in my size 8 clothes!)

Before i had my little monster i was extremely active competing in athletics, triathlon and cycling. Training 18+ hours a week, about 55kg's and i ate what i wanted when i wanted. I put on about 12kg's with Sabine and remained very active during my pregnancy competing in the Xterra national champs in Rotorua at 5months pregnant and running and swimming right through until the monster arrived. 6months on and i am 5kg's over my pre-pregnancy weight. I know i'm not huge or anything, but having not weighed more than 58kg's my entire life it's pretty hard feeling a bit 'wobbly' and untoned. So I'm back training again (Running and cycling) and slowly building my strength back up and trying to loose the weight and feel fit again. It's seems though my body is having a hard time getting the message, i'm exercising more and eating less (oh how i miss you Oreo's) but the evil scales still same the same blinking numbers. The good thing is i am feeling fitter, finding running easier, going further and climbing stronger! If i focus on these things (and not the dreaded numbers on the scales) hopefully i will drop the weight in a more positive less obsessive way!

The tricky part is finding the time to exercise, before 7 is a little  hard (especially if the monster woke at 5am) so some mornings the husband will do the 7am feed whilst i trot around the block. But typically i rush out the door shortly after the husband gets home, and this was fantastic yesterday as it's now daylight savings and it was a beautiful sunny day.  The weekends we play tag team of exercising and looking after Sabine, sometimes we sub in a grandparent too. One day we might be able to go for a ride together (shock horror!). Some days however, I'm so exhausted from looking after Sabine and trying to maintain a tidy house that it just doesn't happen.

The one thing i have started doing is running with the buggy, now this is good and bad. Good that i get out and can take Sabine. Bad that your running style goes out the window and i can imagine it would give you an injury after a while of doing this. But as spring gets warmer and we get into summer, i think i will go crazy staying inside so i might just have to keep swapping hands on the buggy and maybe run the opposite way round a loop so even out the body he he.

I run with my Phil and Ted Sport, but i wish i had one of these....DROOL!

Sunny Nelson = muma makes a sun hat!

The little monster had tonnes of warm woolen beanies made by Nana Baba in the UK, nearly one for every day of the week! But as on cue daylight savings happens and Nelson turns on a beautiful sunny day and 18 degrees. I had planned a walk this afternoon down the beach, round the duck pond etc and i thought right...next mission i will make a sunhat before we go!

I stumbled across a MAGNIFICENT website called Prudent Baby and a 40's inspired sunhat. So off to good old spotlight i went and found the great little bits of fabric in the quilting dept. It only took an hour to make and it was extremely easy. Most sunhats these days are $40 plus, so for under $10 and a little of your time you too can make this wonderful sunhat and feel very proud you made it yourself!

Baby 'wearing'

I didn't know this, but apparently there is a whole following called 'baby wearing'.  There are lot's of different 'followings', Baby lead weaning, cloth nappies, sling babies, mums that don't let their babies cry at all, mums that let their babies cry it out. The list goes on and on, i am in the camp of 'go with what works'.  We do use cloth nappies and suppliment with the occasional disposable and we use a mix of puree and finger food (apparenlty there is nothing better than a bit of toast smothered in carrot puree to smear all over your face and chew on). Anyhow, back to the wearing of my buba! I started off with a simple sling when the monster was little and didn't wriggle too much, that didn't last long. I found that i got nervous about the angle of her neck and couldn't wear it for long as i had a sore back from pregnancy.  But it has been resurected now Sabine is able to sit up, as now she sits upright in the sling (side on, right on my hip) and this is great for short journeys round the supermarket etc.  We also have a Kathmandu backpack, which i love as its perfect for when i walk the dog on the beach where the buggy can't go cause of the very soft sand. Sabine loves being up high, she is a princess looking down on her disciples! Its great for longer walks and going round the Nelson markets as it has a built in pocket that i can put my vegies in.

But sometimes i find the backpack is just a wee bit heavy and bulky, so after a wee bit of investigating i have purchased a Baby Hawk (Mai Tai).  This is a Japanese stlye sling that you carry your buba piggyback style! Super light and i get the lovely bonus of having my monster snuggled up against me. Haven't got a pic of her in it yet...but here's what it looks like. It's taken a wee while to find the right way of wearing a monster but i love it more than having her in the buggy (except for when i go running as the buggy rocks!).

Pre-school or not to pre-school, that is the question!

I went to look at a pre-school for my petite monster yesterday, a super cool little outfit set up in a house in a nice area.  The one we looked at the other week (200m up the road) said the wait list was soooo long that she might not get in until next year! A friend in Auckland is having a bigger dilemma as the one near her has an 18 month waiting list...you would need to put them on the list before they were conceived!!!

I still think my monster is a little bit little, but i think part of it might be my anxiety of letting her out of my cuddling arms and out of my sight where god forbid someone else will be looking after her. I can hear them now "It's ok madam, you can stay for morning tea as well. Then maybe you can release the killer cuddle grip you have on Sabine and she can breathe again".  *sigh* i personally think it will be good for her to have a couple of mornings a week at the pre-school, play with other kids and be in a wonderfully nurturing environment  (different to my wonderful environment...oooh you should have seen the super cute rabbit). I would like to go back to do some work as i can feel my brain cells depleting as i write and it's probably good if i start now before i become even more neurotic he he.

'Object permanence' or whatever it means...

Object permanence...the realisation that if you can't see 'it' it might actually still be there! Bring on the never ending game of peekaboo! My monster now doesn't go "AHHHHHHHHHH she's gone"! "Oh no, there she is", "AHHHHHHHHHH she's gone"!, repeat x10! Now (at nearly 6 months) every time the aptly named (by the husband) 'Mummy monster' lifts the fabric neatly placed over daughters head and says "peekaboo" there are fits of giggles and bucket fulls of dribble (from giggling too much).

The monster has teeth!

Much to my surprise last weekend, the monster decided to cut her first teeth! Well, what would any little monster not be without? And from just peaking through the gum to coming through quite a bit has only taken a week. Now every time she grins like a cheshire cat (which is every 5 mins) you get a shiny pearly white glistening at you. I think she is so proud of it as i swear her grin is bigger than usual just to show it off!

Another first for the monster last weekend was her first bike ride, well she didn't go far and it was aided by Papa quite a lot. But even sitting on the seat she had a grin from ear to ear, i think this girl of mine might live up to her name sake [Sabine Spitz]

How to make friends and influence people

Well it's more about the making friends part, influencing can come later he he.  Since we moved away from friends on the North Shore being a stay at home mum (SAHM) can become a little bit of a lonely business, so i embarked on a serious mission of making new friends (with and without babies attached to their hips).  We attended the antenatal course at the Onewa Parent centre on the North Shore and this was fantastic, well as fantastic as a course on the shocking facts that WILL happen to you when that baby wants to come out, but the people we met were fantastic. So when we arrived in Nelson one of the first things i did was get in contact with the parent centre here.  Less than a week later i was enrolled on the 'Moving & Munching' course and sitting in a room of mums who all knew each other. Errrk, feeling rather like the new kid i tried very hard not to be nervous and chat with the in crowd. Luckily, i had sat next to a great mum and she chatted away to me during the course and asked if i wanted to join their coffee group....SCORE! So last night i baked a carrot cake, leaving very strict instructions to my husband that he was not to consume this cake, so that i will score copious amounts of 'new kid' points at the group this morning.

So my next mission is to make some 'non-mummy' friends to balance the mix, I'm thinking maybe a running/cycling buddy or at least someone to have a wine with he he.

Eeeerk...it's 'friendly' duck season

We live right by a river (well technically and estuary as it's from the sea) and we back onto a golf course, so we are in duck heaven! And it's that time of the year when the mallards get very friendly with the little female ducks ;) They simply don't stop quacking, and a couple of ducks landed on our fence where i was going to abruptly shoo them away but the mallard was particularly impressive! So instead, i took a pic and thought i would get this framed for my wee monsters room.

Let the munching begin...

My little monster has been experimenting with food for a few weeks now, well when i say food i mean mush and anything going in my mouth (that apparently is much better looking than what is in her bowl!).  I'm going aout this 'eating' thing rather blindly, plunket seems to be puree, puree, puree but then there's this whole other thing out there called "baby lead weening" my intellectual head says new fad out of the States, but then there are little bits of this which are great (having fun trying to get the steamed broccoli actually in your mouth DIY style).  So were doing a bit of both, some of the BLW is to me a load of old BS (mean how can a child of under the age of one 'choose' to eat a burger from McDonalds. Yes, yes i have seen pics of this...good luck to the mothers trying to "ween" them off that later in life) but other parts are fantastic and make lots of sense! I Have made my own puree, mainly carrot and kumera and that seems to be going down well. But her fave thing to eat is Papa's nectarine, not pureed...straight off the stone!

She eats this with determination, seriously she bites down and you can almost imagine the "Raaaaaaaaaaaar, nom nom nom" needless to say the husband doesn't get much nectarine with this monster around!

Finally...

So Finally i have gotten around to doing this blog thingy, it's a bit of a test run to be honest as i am a repeat offender of starting something and never finishing! But hopefully it will inspire me to continue doing this every time Sabine and our family do something exciting and i can keep these memories for her so she can look back and see how she became the person she is.

Sabine Luna Kimber-Bate was born 31st March 2010 at 9:47pm at North Shore Hospital New Zealand. It wasn't the easiest of births as i was induced (i'm so glad these moments fade otherwise i would never contimplate pregnancy and birth again), she got a bit stuck (enter the dreaded vontouse!) then she got distressed and finally came into the world rather lifeless.  The moments after this were all a bit of a blur and all i could think was that she wasn't alive. She wasn't breathing on her own and had too much liquid in her lungs. The SCBU lady came in and whisked her away where they found out she had a neumothorax (small hole in her lung) so she had to stay in the unit and be monitored. Sabine was the LARGEST baby in the unit but the only baby not wriggling. After a good stay under the magnificent care of the unit she began to wriggle again and 2 days later i finally got to hold my baby.

I will leave out the gory details as it wasn't pretty and i don't want to put anyone off childbirth, all i can say is don't have a ridgid birth plan as if things don't go the way you imagine (nice waterbirth, no drugs, sneeze and out she pops kinda thing) you want to be able to go "ok, i'm in pain GIVE ME THE EPIDURAL" and next time *shudder* it might be totally different and a nice experience. But in saying all of this, the one day of drama that it took to get her here was worth every moment.  Now she is in my life i would do that a thousand times over just to see her. 

Now i may refer to Sabine as 'My monster' and i say this in a nice cute smiley monster way, you'll see why as i go along! From the moment we took her home she has been a bundle of wriggles, i thought babies just layed there and coo'ed...oh no! Not this one! This one is a fire cracker he he.

We have moved back to the 'Main land' to sunny Nelson and it's lovely here, by the beach and i can't wait for summer to come so the sand castle competitions can begin (between me and the husband no doubt!). Sabine has reached five months old and is now a little person rather than a pooing, spewing machine.  She is a mini-me in looks and personality (so the husband keeps pointing out) so hold onto your hats...the next few months are going to be crazy!