MOTHERHOOD

I can hardly believe that my second Mothers Day has already been and gone.  My SECOND one!!  It's the oddest feeling.  I looked back on photos of myself as a young teenager recently with my braces and my frizzy hair (thanks for nothing puberty) and my painful insecurities, and I found myself whispering 'You're a mother and a wife now'.  I somehow wasn't really certain that motherhood would be in my future, I just couldn't picture it.  But I felt certain (naively so I now see) that if I was ever to have children, then motherhood would come naturally to me.  Of course I quickly learned that there's quite a difference between being the oldest of five siblings and changing the odd nappy, to being entirely responsible for the well being of a perfectly helpless little person.  And so while I found my pregnancy, and to some extent the birth to be a breeze, motherhood shocked the hell out of me.

From the moment my slippery, sweet little daughter was placed into my arms my heart began to pound at triple the speed.  My anxiety levels went through the roof, although exhausted I couldn't sleep and I stressed about the smallest of details.  I think looking back I was terrified.   Once I was back on my feet I fretted over the house not being clean enough, the garden looking overgrown, dinner not being up to scratch.  All this with a crying baby on my arm that never wanted to be put down.  Of course I was in a constant state of tears.
"Be kind to yourself", my mum kept saying to me gently.
That's easy for her to say, I thought.  She's nothing short of bloody superwoman!
Anyway over a year on and I think I have only just started to relax.  Only just realised that the only thing that matters at this time in my life is that I'm the best mother I can be, and sometimes that means saying to hell with the housework, the cooking, the washing... today I'm going to chase seagulls down at the beach with my little girl, we'll have an omelette for dinner and maybe our clean socks just won't be a matching pair tomorrow.  I feel like for the first time in a year I am taking a breath,  I'm stopping to enjoy and simply observe this amazing person we created.  And do you know what?  The house isn't actually messier than it was before and nobody's complaining that dinners a little overcooked.

Life is funny the way it's always testing and pushing us, but in the end the rewards usually far outweigh the struggles.
xx

Week 36 (obligatory nudie shot!)

Well it's not everyday I get my kit off and plaster half nudie photos of myself on the internet... but Nic convinced me that it had to be done!  So here I am at 36 weeks (9 months), with a belly that may not look so huge but is definitely completely filled up with baby! 

After really enjoying these past few months of pregnancy and feeling like it was the best thing I've ever done, I'm suddenly getting rather over it!  My back hurts, my nights are sleepless, my neck is sore from always sleeping on my side, I pee 10 million times a day, I'm getting practise contractions that are quite ouch and worst of all I'm too tired and awkward to do much of anything any more.  Ha ha but in between those times I still kind of love it.  I love how I can feel the baby exactly now, I know where all its limbs are, I can feel it's head and when we play little games when it stretches its feet out.  I love this baby SO much!

Other than that we really have everything prepared now I think.  In fact the only thing we till need is a foot pump to blow the birthing pool up faster.  I can't help but begin to feel just a tad nervous and anxious now that the big day is coming ever closer.  Funny, I felt so confident the whole time but recently out of the 6 people I know who have had babies in the last couple of weeks not a single one had a birth free of complications.  Occasionally I worry about my planned home birth, but then again as my sister reminded me tonight, we have our mums good genes and she gave birth to 5 kids with no problems at all!
So there you have it.  I'm sure we'll get to squeeze another photo or two in before this little one arrives.
x
P.S

 You can find week 34 here.

You asked for it...

Many of you will know that I started a personal blog a short time ago to record all my non vintage/ everyday kind of happenings. The main reason for this was really to share home life, pregnancy and baby with those friends and family who we so wish could be here but alas aren't.  Anyway since then I have had requests by you guys to please share some of our farm life/ DIY projects/ changes to a more eco lifestyle/ house renovation adventures on here.  I thought about it a lot (there happens to be a lot of time to think when you're always awake at 3am) and decided, sure why not!  There has been so much stopping and starting, content changes and a general lack of direction here for some time now that it's starting to get exhausting.  I guess I've always thought that I started this purely as a 'vintage' blog and therefore that is how it should strictly remain.  But the thing is that over the last couple of years I have grown and evolved, as have my interests and so I haven't really been able to relate to this blog so much any more.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that our current lifestyle has actually evolved from the vintage one.  Vintage and second hand shopping opened our eyes to a whole new world away from over consuming and buying cheap crap that we didn't need.  It taught us that quality over quantity is a wonderful thing, and that you often can't beat the quality of something from our grandparents or parents generation!  This then led to a whole new interest in the other ways that our grandparents lived healthier and better.  I started paying much closer attention to the ingredients in the food I was buying, started researching what I could actually MAKE rather than buy and focused greatly on locally grown and made items.  I suppose that falling pregnant really opened my eyes to a lot of new things too.  Do I want to dress my newborn in cheap, 'made in China', chemical filled sweatshop clothes?  Errr no!  So we looked into organic cotton clothes, vintage items and some super cute numbers made by local designers and mama's selling at the markets.  Do I want my kid to eat over processed foods that it has no connection to?  Uh huh.  So we've started on digging  up a big vege patch, starting our own compost (we've been using the neighbours one since we moved here) and are investing in some of our very own chickens!  I pay close attention to the kind of detergents we use and have actually been having a whole lot of fun researching war time housewife tips etc.

Now don't get me wrong, we're not perfect.  We haven't exactly become a couple of tree hugging hippies.  We don't knit our own underwear, we don't buy strictly organic food (although that has more to do with finances than anything else), we probably drive our cars more than necessary and sometimes I forget my cloth shopping bags when I go to the supermarket (gasp)!  But we are doing our best to try and get back to basics a little bit, and you know what?  It feels pretty damn good!

So there you have it (if you're still reading), that's a little low down on where we're at right now and where we hope to go.  I'll start sharing more about this little adventure, as well as our slow home renovation on this ramshackle little house, my DIY projects (and occasional mishaps), as well as the usual vintage mixed in there.
xx

Trying to learn how to CHILL OUT!

I'm kind of reaching the point now where everything is becoming a little more difficult.  You know, the things that you usually take for granted like bending over!  I'm kind of being forced to slow down and I don't like it much.  I always need to keep busy otherwise my mind starts to go a little crazy and I get very restless.  I also don't like it when people have to do things for me, but once again I just have to suck it in and ask every now and then.  This past week has been a little more difficult though (ermm first week I've actually felt really pregnant!) because of an upset stomach and constant mild cramping.  I need for this baby to stay put for another month and that means staying put myself!  So I try to just give myself a few little jobs to do a day, and do my best to block out all the other things I see that could/ should still be done!  I try to go swimming regularly (but that can't happen until the late avo because the sun is too strong here), I read my book, check face book about 20 times a day to see if my other pregnant friends due this week have had theirs, I plan my next meal, I lay around on the couch day dreaming about what it will be like to wake up on the first morning after giving birth and see a snugly little baby beside me, I go to the toilet about as often as I check Facebook, I prod on the little feet that constantly poke out of my side... and that I've got to say is about the extent of it
 all!  Action packed right.  The one thing I have avoided so far is watching day time television, it just feels wrong to be watching the box in the middle of summer, even if you can't go outside.
Anyway this avo I'm off to the doctor again (third day in a row!  The first day was with the skin doctor, the second for routine blood tests and now the third is to see why my guts are so upset), and then tomorrow I have my antenatal coffee group catch up.  It seems half the girls had their babies over the Christmas/ new year holiday so I can't wait to meet them and hear all about it.
Okay I should probably stop this little novel now!  I'm also on dog sitting duty today so had better go and release the hounds.
x

Days like this

 

 

I feel sort of silly for complaining right now because really life is fantastic BUT this week I've been feeling really pregnant!  Up until now it has been quite a breeze to be honest and I've absolutely been loving it.  Somehow after visiting the midwife last week though and finding that the baby is lying posterior I have lost some of my confidence.  I stupidly spent days googling what 'posterior' really meant and completely stressed myself out.  A stupid thing to do!  Then as a result of sitting on a swiss ball for hours at a time, scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees (because crawling is supposed to help) and trying to make sure I am only sleeping on my left side I've given myself a sore back and my neck is playing up again.  I seriously need to chill out!  Today I'm off to a pregnancy osteopath to see if that can't help convince the baby that it should roll over.  Suddenly I also don't have the energy I had any more.  I'm trying to learn to take it easy and not feel guilty about it, lots of afternoon naps and mornings out in the sun reading my book!

Yesterday afternoon was so beautiful though.  After stopping by the antenatal teachers house to borrow her birthing pool (so generous of her and saving us a few hundred dollars!) we headed out to my grandfathers house for a swim.  The beach was dead calm and deserted (as you might expect on a Monday afternoon) so skinny dipping and nudie sunbathing was the order of the day... hence no real people photos sorry!  If I wasn't getting cold I think I could have stayed in the water all day.

Anyway sorry about the grumbling.  It really hasn't been a bad week, just exhausting. Better get used to that I guess!
xx

To work or not to work

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do in regards to working after I've had the baby. I remember talking to a friend a few years ago after she had just had her baby, and asking her if she felt like she wanted to go back to work.  I expected her to say that she wanted to be a stay at home mum forever (because who would ever voluntarily want to go back to work?!).  To my surprise she couldn't wait to get stuck into a new job because much like me she had just found something she really loved and was eager to get her career started.
I know with certainty that I don't want to be working at all (maybe selling the odd vintage pieces here and there) before the kid is at least 6 months to a year old. Up until then I want it to know that it has my full attention and definitely want to be breast feeding full time.  After that I think we need to see how it goes, see how we're all coping and see what kind of kid this turns out to be. 
Two things I know for sure though a) I want to go back to work at some stage, b) I don't want to plonk my child into daycare five days a week.  I'm really hoping that between Nic (who freelances as a photographer and therefore is flexible time wise) and I we can juggle childcare between us.  And on those occasions when we can't my mum has happily volunteered, which is great because she lives just down the road.
I don't need to be working full time but enough to slowly start building up my portfolio again (I began working as a stylist in the year leading up to my pregnancy and fell in love with the job) as well as having some time out to pursue my own goals as well.  I hope that doesn't sound selfish.  I have nothing against full time, stay at home mums.  I grew up with one and it was amazing!  But both financially and for my own peace of mind I need to have a little something of my own going on.  Of course I also need to make sure there is time to squeeze another baby in there too ;).
There are some working mama's out there in the blog world that I truly admire, they seem to have found a great balance (ha ha I realise it often just seems that way!).

Oh Dear Drea

Sisilia Piring 

(psst, this blog is my latest discovery and I LOVE it!)

Shutterbean

The Glow

(Another website I LOVE)

I know that everybody has different views on the matter, but at the moment those are mine. Who knows, I might completely change my mind when the baby arrives!

x

Week 32 (Eight months)

Time feels like it's slowing down now.  The fact that we still have 7 - 8 weeks to go feels like an eternity, seriously I am SO ready to  meet this little one!  We basically have everything sorted except for the car seat which we have but need to take in for a safety check (because it is borrowed from a friend) and be shown how to put it in the car correctly.

Otherwise things a trucking along.  Summer is definitely here now and probably for the first time in my life I'm feeling too hot!  Seriously I usually love the heat and am the last one to complain about it, but right now it's getting a little too toasty.  As well as this it has also brought the mosquito's out in full force and these guys are vicious!  I feel like I spend the better part of the nights hunting down the ones that somehow always sneak into our bedroom.  That then in turn gets the baby excited who starts wriggling and kicking... and before I know it the sun is peeking up behind the tree's and the birds start singing.  Ha ha all good practise for what is soon to come I'm sure!

I really can't complain though, aside from a bit of an upset stomach recently (which I blame on overeating so am trying to eat only small portions of easy to digest foods) I'm still doing great. All my major aches and pains pretty much disappeared at the end of the second trimester.  I spend an awful lot of time reading natural childbirth and hypnobirth books, and trying to avoid any horror stories that people so eagerly like to share.  I feel excited, a little anxious and totally ready to do this!
xx
P.S This will be the last maternity series post on the blog, if you want to continue following the adventure you can pop over to my personal blog HERE.

Oh guts

Yeah literally!  I have had a bit of an upset stomach since Christmas, but today it's really letting me know that it's unhappy.  Naturally I do the one thing I shouldn't and google my symptoms.  Pre-term labour!  Go to hospital immediately! And I'm sitting here now trying to calm myself and not freak out.  My midwife is away on holiday at the moment and although she has left some emergency number I feel reluctant to call them.  Like I think I mentioned in another post, I have an appointment with the temporary midwife on Thursday (today is Sunday) so I'm hoping things will settle down soon.  Given the quantity, frequency and richness of the food I have been eating over the past week I suppose it's no wonder that my stomach is fed up with the way I've been treating it!  So today I'm trying to be nice.  I had a bowl of homemade muesli (which is SO easy to make and a great way to avoid all the excessive sugars and salts that are in store bought muesli) with fresh blueberries and oat milk for breakfast.  For lunch I made a really simple roast vege salad that just had lemon juice, paprika and herbs sprinkled on it.  I'm drinking water like there's no tomorrow and am about to go and have a nap.  If it still hasn't settled more by later this afternoon then I promise I will call the midwife.

I tell you, this constant worrying about things is something I definitely won't miss about being pregnant!
x

Some resolutions for 2013

I have been thinking about my New Year resolutions for a little while now and have come to realise that it's hard to make too many when I'm about to dive into complete unknown territory!  Obviously this coming year is going to be more different to anything I have ever imagined.  I have no idea what kind of mother I will be, or what kind of child I will have for that matter.  I have this idea that I will spend the first 6 months at least focusing almost completely on our little one and then will gradually be able to start working a little bit again. I know for 100% certain that I don't want to be a full time working mama who leaves her child in a crèche 5 days a week (although of course I understand that for some people this is their only option).  So I suppose my goals this year are a little bit more simple than most others;
1.  Be the best mama I can possibly be! <<< that one goes without saying I'm sure.
2.  Buy less, make more.  This is mainly in relation to food.  We do pretty well already but I think we could still do better!
3. Begin to make some wedding plans for this time next year ;).
4. Be a little tidier.  Actually put craft projects etc AWAY straight after I'm finished with them!
5.  Get on with more house renovations
6. Go back to pilates.  Oh how I miss it and have missed it throughout this pregnancy.
7. Listen to more music and build up my collection again.  Long story but everything I had got stolen :(.
8. Generally just be grateful for everything we have and not get hung up on silly little things.
9.  Stress less, love more, just be HAPPY!

I think that's about it, like I said, simple!  And quite different to my long list from last year.
x

First days of summer (and an 8 month bump)

 Today has felt like the first REAL day of summer.  It was hot and sunny... and the only way to really feel comfortable at 8 months pregnant has been to head to the beach!  The is the beach at my grandfathers place and is where I spent most of my summer holidays as a child.  The great thing is that it's difficult to get to (unless you go through his property) so most of the time there is nobody else there.  This of course means that you get to spend the whole summer running around in the nudie (or at least without a bikini top) which is a pretty great feeling!  I can't wait until we get to bring our little one here next year.

So we've hit 8 months, WOW!  By now I'm starting to get impatient, not because pregnancy is so awful, but because I am so excited to meet this little belly dweller!  It spends an awful lot of time wriggling and trying to get comfortable (much like its mama).  It also has a very strong sense of what it likes and dislikes, for example if I'm lying in a way that it doesn't like I get booted in the side until I roll over!  Demanding much?!  It loves listening and jiggling to music, gets very excited if we go somewhere noisy and it hears lots of new voices, seems to enjoy the sound of the shower (and starts moving as soon as I get out) and doesn't appear to appreciate me over eating (ermm sorry there has been rather a lot of that in the past week).  I'm not getting much sleep at the moment, although that has more to do with the heat, constant mosquito attacks and very frequent toilet trips more than the baby itself I think.  Otherwise I really can't complain too much.  We have another midwife appointment this coming week, but because our usual one is on holiday it will be with somebody else. Let's see how that goes!

Overall it has been a great but very exhausting week and I really feel like I need to take it easy for a while.  So I'm planning to eat lots of salads and fruit (because this constant over eating from Christmas is giving me a belly ache), plenty of swimming and generally just plenty of relaxing.  I try to have a little lie down every afternoon when it really gets too hot and spend most of my time reading some great books on childbirth.  In particular I am loving Ina May and her stories from The Farm and one that the antenatal teacher lent me on hypnobirthing.  Both are very inspiring and offer such a beautiful, unique view on birth.  I've got to say that at this point I am actually looking forward to the whole process!  I'm very curious to see how I handle it and I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge.  Ha ha but ask me again in a couple of months and I may be singing to quite a different tune!
x

Maternity series flashback (15 - 28 weeks)

 Week 15

Week 16

Week 17

Week 18

Week 19

Week 20

 Week 23

Week 25

Week 28
*You can click on each week and it will take you to the relating post.

So far I've got to say that this pregnancy has been a breeze.  Sure there have been the odd aches and pains, but on the whole I've been feeling great.  Tomorrow marks the beginning of week 31 (ermm yes sorry we seem to be skipping a couple of weeks every now and then) and Christmas Day marks exactly 2 months until our due date!  I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to meet this little person.  I know they say that you fall madly in love when you first set eyes on them, but let me tell, sometimes I already feel so in love with this baby that I might just burst!

We knew right from the start that we wanted this journey to be as natural as possible.  If all goes as it should, which it has been so far, then we are planning a homebirth here in our living room.  There are many reasons for this and I won't go into them all, but lets just say that almost all the women in my family have had their babies at home and have had beautiful experiences.  I have never been to hospital in my life and to be honest they freak me out!  For me it is important to be in a calm, relaxing place where I feel comfortable in my surroundings and know that my baby is going to be born into a peaceful atmosphere.  Having said that, if the midwife had even the slightest bit of concern I would head to hospital in a shot!

The purpose of this maternity series was mainly to have a record of this pregnancy and be able to look and read back on the changes.  I also set myself the challenge of not buying any maternity clothing.  It seems insane to me, to shell out hundreds of dollars on clothing that will only my useful for a short time.  Instead I hit my local second hand shops and snapped up all sorts of beautiful vintage/ retro dresses.  Ones from the 1970s work especially well!  I was also lucky enough to stumble across a bag full of dresses that my grandmother had sewn for my mother when she was pregnant with me.  Luckily this is a little summer baby so I have been able to make great use of these long flowing cotton dress.  I really haven't been wearing anything else!

So there you have it.  I think we're up to date on the whole baby business.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask.  We will continue the maternity series until the baby arrives.
xx

Oh so quiet

It feels like there has been endless silence on this blog at the moment.  Trust me though when I say that behind the scenes it's all systems go!  Between finishing work, getting ready to open the new online Dashfield store, getting caught up in Christmas madness, cooling off at the beach in between and trying to make sure I am as prepared as possible for the arrival of our little one in a couple of months... well I just haven't had time for much else!  Life is a whole lot of different levels of exhausting, stressful and completely amazing at the moment.  I am also seriously thinking about beginning a second blog. I've never felt terribly comfortable about posting personal things on this one (you may have noticed over time how I sway in and out of doing that), but now my sister and her husband are off to live in Paris, my dearest friends and family are speckled all over the country and globe, my brother is in Canada and to be quite honest it makes me sad that they will be missing out on so much of this babies life.  Not to mention that I don't want to bore you with all my pregnancy/ baby/ daily life ramblings!  So my thinking is that I will just stick to shop talk and vintage lustings on this blog, and get more personal on another one.  that way if you're curious you can jump over for a peek but you won't be bombarded with it all the time.
Anyway so I mainly wanted you to know that things are still ticking along nicely here on the farm and if you'll bare with me for just a little while longer I'll be back in full swing again.
xx
P.S This is the beach by our house (at low tide), aren't we just a little bit spoilt!

Week 28 (3rd trimester baby!)

 Dress - second hand store 

Photos by Nic fletcher

Oops it looks like we missed a few weeks!  Hard to believe that we're now into the last part of this whole pregnancy adventure!  I keep looking at the little clothes and can't even imagine that they are soon going to be filled by a tiny, little person.  I am so excited to meet whoever has been kicking around in my belly all this time though!

Well it turned out that today became my last day of work!  I did think that I would go up until Christmas but in the last couple of weeks it has become clear that it's just becoming too awkward with this ever growing belly.  My job requires me to be on my feet a lot, carry fairly heavy things and squeeze past crowds of people regularly... all of which was becoming quite a mission.  So we decided today that it might be better if I called it quits now.  I will really miss the people I've been working with (and the money) but to be honest I am also looking forward to having time now to reopen Dashfield Vintage, prepare for Christmas and give this blog more attention.

I've got to say that aside from pretty much not sleeping any more (many nights are spent sitting on the couch re-reading my favourite Ava Gardner biography and absorbing myself in the world of 1940s movie glamour), I am actually feeling better than ever!  I'm sure it's likely to change soon but right now I absolutely love being pregnant.  My heart melts every time the baby kicks and moves, all my aches and pains have gone and I'm generally feeling pretty damn good about life (thank you awesome pregnancy hormones).

Our midwife appointments will be every 2 weeks from now on and I went and got all my bloods done again earlier this week.  We are also nearly finished with our antenatal classes so things are starting to feel rather real now!  I basically just plan to make this the best summer ever.  Lots of beaches, BBQ's, good friends and great food!

x