Fluttering Butterflies

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Elliot's family portrait
2008-02-11 10:07:00
...as drawn by N yesterday.
More About: Family , Portrait

Let's talk about labour, baby
2008-02-08 11:33:00
I ordered my TENS machine last night in an attempt to get everything ready for this baby's birth and I was just wondering these things:What type of pain relief did you use? (for me, I had a TENS machine and large amounts of gas and air)How long was your labour? (I'll just say it was short so people don't hate me)What was the most useless item that you put in your hospital bag? (Snack foods to keep my 'energy levels up')Did everything go according to your birth plan? (I've never written a birth plan, is that bad?)I love hearing birth stories, so if you want to share, feel free. I've written about Elliot's birth before, I'll try to find the link again. I'm starting to feel scared that we still haven't organised everything for the baby's arrival and not being prepared is just silly when we have all this time. This weekend I think is going to be spent arranging furniture, pulling out baby things from the loft, getting everything cleaned and shopping for those last few bi...
More About: Baby , Labour , Talk

A bad week
2008-02-07 13:06:00
It's been a bad week, folks. Not only am I sick of being pregnant, I'm also just plain sick. I've got just under 8 weeks to go, and I'm frustrated that I can't bend over for things, that I get breathless for the smallest of activities. I'm tired of the heartburn, of the backache. I'm even tired of people asking if we've thought of any names. These last few weeks of pregnancy have turned me into an impatient grump. And my behaviour is having an effect on Elliot. He's becoming more stubborn, refusing to obey orders, pretending not to hear me when I'm telling him off. He's brought back the tantrum and his old sulk-face. And of course, I'm sick, so I'm feeling all a bit ratty and snippy. I have a hacking cough that has kept me up at night, my throat is so sore and scratchy that I've now lost my voice. (Imagine how affective it is when I try to tell off my son using a combination of sign language and whispering.) My nose is at once blocked and runny, and the best...
More About: Week

Aha!
2008-02-04 16:46:00
You Should Be a DoctorYou are practical, sharp, and very intuitive.Optimistic and energetic, you are a problem solver who doesn't get discouraged easily.You are also quite compassionate and caring. You make people feel hopeful.You're highly adaptable and capable. You do well with almost any curve ball life throws at you.You do best when you:- Are always learning new subjects- Use your knowledge to solve problemsYou would also be a good therapist or detective.What Should You Be When You Grow Up?If only things were this simple, right? I clicked on an arbitrary picture design and apparently I should be a doctor, therapist or detective. Oh well. I've put a lot of thought into this recently. I've never had a great idea about what I want to be when I grow up... I suppose I am grown-up, and what I am is a wife and a mother. And that's OK for now, I enjoy my life and wouldn't change it for anything. But I need more than that as well. I need to finish my university degree, I need to fi...

I need help
2008-01-31 21:39:00
There has been a serious lack of reading done around the Fluttering Butterflies-home. Unless of course, you count the numerous times a day I read this, which I don't. But if you've got kids, this one is a winner. Of course speaking of children's books, check out the latest post over at Books Lists Life detailing the 100 books every child should read. How many have you read?! (sadly, I've only read 37, but there are so many more from the list that I always meant to read!) There is a possibility that I will emerge from my warm cocoon tomorrow and face the severe weather (snow and blizzards, oh my!) to try my luck in the children's department of the library to tick some others off my list. Possibly. It would force me to humiliate myself and check any books out on my 2 year old son's library card because Mama's library card has too many unpaid fines. We'll see. I don't actually remember the last book I finished. That's incredibly sad. I'm not sure I've finished an...

That all-important decision..
2008-01-30 12:49:00
This year, Elliot will be three years old. Admittedly, it won't be until the very end of the year, but nonetheless, it will happen this year. Which means, I have this huge decision hanging over my head - which pre-school do I send Elliot to? It seems like a monumental decision, and one in which I have very little control over. There are currently three options, which look like this:Option one: A new pre-school which has only opened this term, which is connected to the Roman Catholic primary school we would like Elliot to attend. It is, however the farthest pre-school to get to and in order to get to it, Elliot and I (with Second Baby in tow) will either have to take a bus plus walk 10-15 minutes, or drive (hopefully that will be a possibility!) through school-run traffic through the middle of town. The middle of town of course, runs a one-way system which means a much longer route. The pre-school itself seems rather strict, and enforces a uniform for its students. They can...
More About: Decision

What do you think?
2008-01-29 17:15:00
It might just be time for Elliot's first haircut, what do you think? Does the scruffy-boy look work for you? It's a nightmare to brush and is always sticking up and out. I just don't want to cut off all of his lovely curls for them to disappear forever. And I'm worried that he won't sit still long enough for a haircut. Maybe it's one more thing that I'm putting off in an attempt at stopping my son from growing up..

Happy 2 year blogging anniversary to me!
2008-01-27 12:17:00
(the title pretty much says everything)
More About: Anniversary , Blogging , Happy , Year

Sorry to leave you hanging...
2008-01-26 13:09:00
The package from my mother was opened last week. I've had a whole week to think about it and go through the contents. I thought about taking a photo and posting it on here, but I decided it was too personal. I have so little that my mother has given me, that I feel the need to hold onto it just a little bit longer. Forgive me for that. It was a good package. It didn't hold any huge revelations or confessions. In my head I wanted her to write that she loved me, that she's proud of me, that she misses me. The closest I got was when she signed the end of her letter with 'love ya' and it turns out that works for me. Her package did give me a lot to think about though. She told me she got married to her long-term boyfriend Larry. I met Larry when I was maybe 15. I was still a sulky teenager at the time, struggling to deal with the breakdown of my family. I realise now that I never gave Larry a chance. He seemed a decent sort, a lot older than my mother with grownup chil...
More About: Leave

Exclusion
2008-01-24 23:06:00
When I first moved into this new town a year ago, I really struggled to make new friends. I'm horribly shy and I do terribly with starting a conversation with a stranger and maintaining small talk. But once you get to know me, I'm a nice person, a good friend. You might have to trust me on that one, but I promise, it's true. Anyway, I thought I'd struck gold when I came across this NCT coffee group in my neighbourhood. We meet up every Monday afternoon at a different person's house every week. There's roughly 6 of us, and we all have similar aged children. It was slow at first getting to know the other women, but I felt that over the past 6-8 months we've come a long way. I knew that the other women had known each other for a lot longer, but I felt accepted into the group, felt like a friend. We've gone to each other's children's birthday parties, girl's nights out, holiday parties. We've discussed close-friend things and had a good laugh.And then I found out tha...

End of an era...
2008-01-22 16:35:00
It looks as though Elliot has said his final farewells to his afternoon nap. And I have 10 weeks left of this pregnancy and could have used the extra time during the day to rest. He has a perfect sense of timing, that little boy. I'll miss you, naptime.

Finally, a belly shot
2008-01-18 11:27:00
So even though I'm in my 29th week of pregnancy, and am quite heavily pregnant, I still find it odd when strangers ask me when I'm due. I still feel as though my pregnancy isn't obvious, when it really must be. With just over 10 weeks to go, I have no idea why I feel like this. Maybe it's partially because I'm not emotionally ready for the idea of two children. Does that make sense? It's not that I'm not excited or looking forward to it, I just feel like my brain needs this next 10 weeks to work its way around the whole idea. I still feel like a lot needs to be done between now and then, but I can't work out what exactly. I kind of wish I had a crystal ball right now, to peek ahead into the future so I can reassure myself that everything will be OK. That I'll manage with the sleepless nights, that maybe the breastfeeding will go better this time, that Elliot will be a sweet and loving big brother, that before I know it the boys will be the best of friends.
More About: Shot , Finally , Belly

Thrown
2008-01-16 21:56:00
As most of you know, Wednesdays are my day off. I drop Elliot off in the morning with his Grandma, and N picks him up on his way back home from work. I usually have lots of plans to fill up my Wednesdays, and today was no different. I wanted to change the bed linen, do some laundry, finish the ironing. I was going to vaccum, I was going to finally decorate the gingerbread house that N bought me for Christmas.Instead, I got a phone call that really threw me today. Instead of doing all my chores, I sat in front of the TV or computer all day, staring mindlessly at nothing in particular. Something, anything to keep my mind from thinking about that phone call. Apparently an old neighbour back where we used to live has a package for me. A package from my mother. I haven't heard from my mother in over a year. The number I have for her doesn't work, and she moved without giving me her new address. Contact from her after such a long time confuses me. I don't know what to think ...

Was tidying up..
2008-01-14 21:35:00
When I found these fantastic Christmas cracker jokes. Why did I save them? Who knows? But for your pleasure, here they are, and if you groan just once whilst reading them, then it will have been worth it!Q: Who is the most famous married woman in America?A: Mrs Sippi.Q: How do snails keep their shells shiny?A: Snail varnish.Q: What do you get if you cross a stereo with a refridgerator?A: Cool music.Q: Why did the strawberry get a lawyer?A: Because it was in a jam.Q: Why didn't the skeleton go to the New Year's Eve party?A: He had no body to go with.Q: Why don't ducks tell jokes when they're flying?A: Because they would quack up.Personally, the married woman in America joke is my favourite. Possibly followed by the skeleton.

I'm so tiiiiiiiirrreeedd..
2008-01-12 21:56:00
There are things I'd like to discuss on this blog, but this week I've just been so tired. I get plenty of sleep at night, I take a long nap whilst Elliot sleeps, I don't generally exert myself more than usual. No heavy lifting, I'm not up and down the stairs much. But I'm exhuasted all the time. I guess I forgot this part of pregnancy from the first time around. I'm in my 29th week. Which means 'third trimester' and '11 weeks to go'. I swear that before Christmas, time was going a lot slower. We have a birthday party to attend tomorrow for one of Elliot's friends, who is the daughter of a woman I met in my antenatal classes when I was pregnant with Elliot. It's at a soft play centre. I'm not looking forward to it... N will say he's fine taking Elliot around and running after him, but I hate to miss out on the fun, seeing the excitement on Little Boy's face. But I know I should sit this one out and take it easy, but that's just no fun. Am off to bed...

Keeping busy and money matters
2008-01-09 21:11:00
I was thinking the other day, that as things stand now, I won't be going back to a normal type of job for the next three years. That's three years from April, which I think would be when Second Baby would be eligible for preschool. Three years is a long time. And I think I need something to occupy me, to keep me busy. For the first time ever last week, I asked N to go through the bills and everything with me, and he explained the process of the different accounts and what savings and stuff we have. It's always been in the back of my mind that I should know these things, if something ever happened to N, I'd be at such a loss. But it also struck me that N works incredibly hard, but we're just scraping by at the moment. Financially it's not worth me going back to work, but I do feel bad. I feel like I should be contributing more in some way. So I thought maybe I could combine the two. Find some way to work from home, around my children. But everything I've looked at mak...
More About: Money , Matters , Busy

Too lazy to blog
2008-01-08 22:11:00
But I'm still going to try and I apologise in advance if I skip around to different topics, that's how my brain has been lately. It's been weird around here over the last few weeks. You all probably know there's always been a bit of a strain in the relationship between me/N and his sister. It's reached a terrible point over the last few weeks and it has seriously pulled me down. It's just a very sad, sad situation and it keeps creeping into my thoughts. Plus after we'd put all the Christmas decorations and everything away for the year, it seemed like a good time to do a whole-house tidyup. A very relieving task. I love clearing clutter, and especially organising. I lost count of how many bags of 'junk' went to the charity shops. It must just be me and my luck, but it seems like every person I know with a child is having a birthday party in the next two months. Just when Christmas is over and I think 'phew, no more presents/wrapping/spending' and we get three party...
More About: Blog , Lazy

Christmas wrap up
2008-01-06 14:21:00
I do this thing, every Christmas and birthday, where I like to take pictures of Elliot with all the old wrapping paper. I don't know how it started, but it's my own little tradition now. It's one of my favouritest things about the two celebrations. And here are the results (the best ones, I mean) I didn't get around to taking the photos on Christmas itself because of everything going on, but I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. And another thing. We moved into this house 14 months ago and have only really met our next door neighbours to the left of us, and that's because they have a little boy who's only a few months younger than Elliot. Anyway, for some reason, this year our neighbours across the street posted a Christmas card through our letter box. A friendly thing to do, and something we probably should have done last year, but didn't. We posted one back to them, but is that the end of it? Is there some other thing we're supposed to do now to continue this friend...
More About: Wrap

Goodbye 2007!
2008-01-02 11:42:00
I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year, and hopefully 2008 brings everyone what they wish for. As I did last year, I now present my 2007 review of this blog. I've included the first sentence of the first day I posted for each month in the year to give a good taster of what's gone on. To be honest, it's fairly embarassing, but whatever. Here we are:Happy New Year!My favourite things!N doesn't read many books, but when he does a finish a book, it usually means it was a pretty good book.I was tweezing my eyebrows earlier, and I remembered something that happened back in 8th grade.Self, The next time you're awake at 10:30pm and feel a bit peckish, do not under any circumstances decide to nip downstairs and eat a huge bowlful of Chinese leftovers.All children need acceptance, love, encouragement, discipline, consistency and positive attention from their parents....so I give you pictures of the ever gorgeous Elliot.I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I've started t...
More About: Goodbye

...Two toddler parties and a bad case of acid refluuuux...
2007-12-21 22:05:00
I've had a rotten few days. We've been super busy with Christmas preparations, and even two toddler Christmas parties in one day. At first I just thought I was feeling a bit crap because everything was happening all at once, but then it got to be that horrible acid-y feeling I've only felt a few times before - just before I went into hospital was acute pancreatitis. What a fun feeling that was. Apparently, being pregnant means I'm more prone to these things. Yay. I'm feeling much better, but still not 100%. I didn't get out of bed this morning until 11:30, I think that helped. But, the good news is, I got to feed a real reindeer. And Elliot cried when I tried to bring him over to pet him. I hope the photos turn out. If I don't see you before, I hope everyone has a great Christmas!
More About: Parties , Acid , Case , Toddler

Baby clothes...
2007-12-13 12:41:00
Here's my confession: I bought these baby clothes more than a year ago for a cousin's baby in Australia. Because of an error in the postal address it got bounced around in some foreign post office before being sent back 6 months later. And by the time it got back to us, the clothes would have been too small for the little girl. So I kept them. (we sent other gifts for the cousin's baby of course!) And here's the thing, at least two friends of the family have given birth to little girls since then, but I've been hoarding these clothes. Just in case, you know? And when I found out I was having another boy, maybe for a little while I was sad at the idea of not being able to buy pretty dresses and pink butterfly tops, but it didn't last long, I promise. And now it'll feel a bit liberating to give someone else these little clothes. And I realised, boy's clothes are cute too. I went through all of Elliot's weeny baby clothes the other day and started crying. Everything was so lit...
More About: Baby , Clothes , Cloth

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
2007-12-11 13:24:00
The tree is up, the Christmas cards have been sent out, the Christmas music has been playing, the presents have all been bought... it's almost here! We have three children's Christmas parties that Elliot will be going to this year, N bought him the cutest outfit in the world to wear to them. I can't wait to post a photo! But I'm dying to hear about your Christmas traditions? How do you celebrate? Do you open a present on Christmas eve? Do you leave anything out for Santa?

And the wait is over...
2007-12-10 12:33:00
I present to you Baby Number 2 in all HIS glory. Yes, it looks as though the baby is most definately male!
More About: Wait

Disappointed
2007-11-30 21:47:00
Last year, I was disappointed when NaBloPoMo ended because I had so much to write about and I felt like I needed a push in the right direction. This year, I'm disappointed because I wanted to write about so many different things, and never found the time. This year it felt more like a chore, something I HAD to finish and dragged my feet about. So I never got around to posting my ultrasound photo, never wrote about finding out the sex of our new baby, never posted a pregnant belly photo, never wrote about Elliot's birthday party or birthday, you didn't hear about our Thanksgiving, I didn't tell you about the great book I just finished, or write about my thoughts on being baptised. And I guess that's OK. Now I'll blog in my own time and hopefully be more interesting. Well done to anyone else who have completed the challenge... sorry I didn't do more commenting. This weekend will be pretty busy, what with N's work Christmas party tomorrow and our anniversary on Sunday. ...

Wedding stuff...
2007-11-29 22:37:00
M tagged me this month to write 7 (was it 7? 8?) things about me, but then I saw over at Gina's that she did a similar thing about her wedding and I liked that better. Plus, it's sort of fitting as this weekend is N and my 7th wedding anniversary. So bear with me, I'm a girl who likes details...1. I've probably already mentioned this before, but N and I met on the internet. We first started chatting together the 4th of December, 1998. One year later, on the 10th of December 1999, we met for the first time face-to-face. And almost one year later, on the 2nd of December we got married. December means a lot to us, understandably. 2. N and I no longer speak to either of the ushers we had at our wedding, or one of the women who did a reading. I guess we should have chosen different people...3. I had a big poofy whatchamacallit under my dress to make the skirt poof out more, but in my nervousness that morning, I managed to put the thing on inside out so the scratchy bits wer...
More About: Wedding , Stuff

Happy 2nd birthday Elliot!
2007-11-28 22:03:00
This photo pretty much says it all.
More About: Happy , Birthday , Elliot

Year in review
2007-11-27 22:02:00
N and I have been going through photos of Elliot taken over the last year and we're finally sending some off for printing. I thought I'd share some of my favourite photos...
More About: Review , Year , Year in Review

The thing is...
2007-11-26 22:25:00
The thing about having my dad here for a visit is that he likes to talk. He doesn't seem to mind telling our family's sordid history to anyone. Which is fine for him. Really. I wish I could talk as openly about our family sometimes as well. But I don't. It still feels uncomfortable for me, but when my dad is in town, I do have to find a way to deal with him telling my friends and family about my mother and how she doesn't much care for me as a person, or how my brother has had so many run-ins with the law. I guess it all takes time and each person handles difficult situations in different ways. It's hard, but it's only once a year, right?
More About: Thing

I can't believe I left the camera downstairs!
2007-11-24 21:36:00
I really wanted to post photos of the party today but they're all downstairs and you can't expect a pregnant woman to be traipsing up and down the stairs all the time :) The party turned out GREAT! Even better than I thought it would. My homemade fairy cakes were delicious, the kids were dancing around and having fun. Good conversation everywhere. I was really pleased with the whole event. A few highlights of the party: when one little girl decided to smear icing all over another girl's face and that girl let her, and when Elliot clapped after everyone sang 'Happy birthday' and blew out his two candles all by himself. It was so nice to see Elliot so happy and surrounded by his friends and family. I love that kid. I swear I will post photos tomorrow. Or possibly Sunday. But really I just want to go lie in bed after a really long day and watch the X Factor. And then possibly stay up the rest of the night reading my new book (Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer) and will try not...
More About: Camera , Left , Downstairs

I knew it'd be hard...
2007-11-23 22:00:00
...but I didn't realise it would be this hard to maintain posting for this whole month. I understand why no one's commenting, I wouldn't want to read my blog either, but I just don't have the energy to post interesting things right now. There's too much going on with Elliot's party, entertaining my dad, worrying about my baptism. We still have presents to be wrapped, the cake to be collected, some baking all for tomorrow. We have no music, not enough chairs, we've just realised we have no tapes for our digital camcorder. Did I tell you I chopped my hair off a few days ago? I still haven't scanned my ultrasound photo... I have so many things to do and to remember and this blog is sadly not getting my full attention. I haven't hardly been visiting other blogs and am doing zero commenting. So I apologise to all of my regulars and everyone who used to have the occasional comment from me...
More About: Hard