What I imagined...

I had envisaged three little boys going off to Auskick and the under nine's.

Three little boys heading off to cricket on Saturday morning in the summer.

Three boys driving us crazy with their noise and mess.

Three big strapping boys crashing home after school or footy training and rummaging for food.

I saw me being The Queen of the Kitchen, feeding them and their mates really good food. Teenage boys think with their stomachs, don't they? I saw myself teaching them to cook.

Three of them.

Baby

This time last week I was in labour. It seems so hard to believe, it wasn't meant to happen that way at all. I woke up that morning with the slow realisation coming over me that it hadn't all been just an upsetting dream.

Labour was about 7 1/2 hours long, my shortest by a long way. Drug free.....do two panadol count? Baby L.T. was born, with a tiny bit of that 'oh wow' factor I've heard about in regards to a natural, drug free birth. All 320 grams of him. He never took a breath, we didn't expect him to. We spent an hour with him, the midwives took hand prints and footprints for us.

We said our hellos and goodbyes.

We cried.

Life after baby

Had a rough afternoon yesterday, too many tears, cranky at the kids, tired, short tempered. I've still got to get back to doing the school run, which hubby has been doing for me up till now. I dropped off this morning, but managed to escape without really speaking to anyone significant. Got to go back this afternoon. I'm just hanging out with my 3 year old for now and following his lead, he's been a bit neglected of late.

It was one week ago today I found out our baby had no heartbeat.

A week ago tomorrow that I gave birth to him.

My only natural, drug free birth.

My milk came in, but I've managed to keep that under control and it's going away again.

Not sleeping too well, I think my body is waking me up to feed the baby.

We live in a very supportive community, surrounded by many friends, acquaintances and well-wishers, but it's still really hard right now.

Baby

We lost our baby boy last week, stillborn at 28 weeks. I'm not ready to say more than that right now.

Making space

The organisation bug has spread to the kitchen.

Yay for that, although we do luckily have a rather large kitchen, despite the overall smallness of the house. In it's previous life, the kitchen was done in pink and included a built in booth and seats, which are now looooooong gone, thankfully.

So, see this wee corner?

It was housing two recipe folders, two fruit bowls, the bread, the butter dish, my beloved thermomix, a large granite mortar and pestle and a knife block. As well as whatever random grains or nuts I happened to be soaking at any given time.

And now, gorgeous (mostly) emptiness.

'Scuse the enormous bowl of lemons, they're all ripening at once and with carpal tunnel making itself felt in my right hand....thanks baby #3......I'm not getting them juiced in anything like a hurry.

Meaning, that bowl wouldn't usually be there, post organisational blitz.

So what happened to the items that used to inhabit this space?

Well, apart from the knife rack (which I LOVE!) that dear Hubby installed on the underside of the shelf thus doing away with the wooden knifeblock that sat on the benchtop, most of the bulkier remaining items have been relocated here....

Which is actually a built in nook for the microwave.

See the power points? And the, er, unfinished wall that was always hidden by the microwave?

Where's the microwave gone?

Well, I was all for getting rid of it, until we left it unplugged for a couple of days and I realised I do actually use it, not for anything momentous mind you.

So now, the microwave resides here:

Which is one half of the cupboards under the kitchen sink, beside the dishwasher.

Brilliant, I tells ya!

Beside the micro is a plastic bin I store recyclables in before taking it to the recycling bin outside.

Where the micro is now, there used to be a second, identical plastic bin, for recyclables.

Take the second bin out (which means I'm walking one bin out more often, instead of making two trips with two bins, less often. Got that?) raise the shelf up a level (necessitating a hole to be cut in the shelf so the drain pipe from the kitchen sink can nest snugly in it

and ta dah!

More room on my bench and a less cluttered look overall.

I am newly in love with my kitchen, aaaaahhhh.....

Well hello 2011......finally. And........baby news!

Thank you to those who have been enquiring both here and behind the scenes whether I am in fact still alive....

Blogging has been on the backburner for a while now as life has felt just too darn busy, partly due to the fact that we're unexpectedly expecting baby number three.

Yup, number three.

Make that BOY number three.

Eeeek!!

So I'm trying to enjoy the quiet life, or what passes for that in our house, until August when the game is ON.

Recently, the quiet life has included....

A stay at the farm, the farm being the weekend retreat from the mansion.

Yup, terrible hardship that one.

This is the view from one angle...

And from another...

The boys did some of this...

And plenty of this...

A wee spot of this...

A little bit of this....

(that's not me in case you're wondering, that's one of the farm managers)

Had a try out with the machinery....

(Thanks to the other farm manager)

Investigated the tea plantation...

And generally had a fabulously good time inside the homestead as well as out...

Then there was start of prep for Mr 5....

The start of pre school for Mr 3.

Still settling in to this one.

Mr 3's birthday.

Turning 3, obviously.

We are now undertaking a re organisation of the inside of our house and garage, rearranging things to fit in an extra person, albeit, a rather small person.

Not sure if this is just an issue if you have boys, but sports equipment seems to breed in our garage and our seemingly huge collection of footballs, soccer balls, basketballs, tennis balls, golf clubs, cricket bats, t-ball bats, badminton rackets, tennis rackets, scooters, bikes and skateboards has taken over the garage to the point where it's difficult to find a safe path to the rear garage door.

Not to mention mine and hubby's snowboards, from the days when we were footloose and child free....

So, to free up space in what will be the baby's dresser, I need to get Mr 3's clothes out of there and into the wardrobe in his room, where he is with Mr 5.

Which means some of the things in that wardrobe need to be moved to storage in the garage.

Which means the garage needs some major organisation to be able to take aforementioned things AND have anyone find them ever again if needed.

So, guess what we'll be doing over Easter weekend?

Yup, organising the garage and working backwards from there.

Update on this long neglected, half-written post:

We DID organise the place over Easter.

Mr 3 started pre-school, hated it and has since stopped going.

Mr 5 is now Mr 6 and we're gearing up for a birthday party this weekend.

Ok, hopefully more regular blogging will happen from now on.

Life continues!

See how my garden grows

I have lots of things (successfully) growing in the garden this season.

Two of these little guys, pumpkins, bought from my lovely farmer's market for $2 a piece. I can't remember what sort they are, something stripy I think. I stopped to talk to their grower today, he was full of good tips.

My orange tree, with exactly one baby orange, thanks to an enthusiastic 2 year old.

Lots of tomatoes, most grown from seed, this one brought home by the boys from a (free!) planting class at out local garden center. I do have one tigerella bought home from the market, it was reduced and is not looking too happy yet.

Blueberries of course, which my 2 year old delights in picking whenever he spies a ripe one. We have decided to go berry picking this year, as it will a long time (and involve more plants) before we can grow enough berries to satisfy demand.

Ditto the above for these raspberries, except I'm sure both boys will fight to see who gets to these first. I haven't netted these yet.

Curly parsley. I know it's not fashionable but I love it.

A few green beans just showing (not sure what sort as Mr 5 bought these home from preschool).

And I'm very chuffed with my lemon tree, this little fella I put in the ground 7 years ago when we bought this house, and this is the first year it has had more than 3 lemons on it.......3 was last years record.

This year it is literally covered in them. It has an infestation of gall wasps which make it rather odd shaped but I've been told they should not affect the lemon production. But I think this year is the first year the tree has been big enough (it's still rather small for 7 years old) and strong enough to really withstand the wasps and produce.

Admittedly, I have been actually looking after it, rather than ignoring it this year.

And, er, the basil, which is not looking too hot.

I think because it is too hot, I need to move it.

As well as two mini nectarine trees hidden round the back to give to the boys at Christmas.

Mr 5 always asks for his own tree so I thought kill two birds with one stone....a Christmas gift for the boys with a practical application for the whole family.

As long as I remember to water them being that they're out of my regular sight...

Can you smell these?

Mmmm, fresh vanilla pods, they smell SOOOO GOOD!

Grown for the first time in Australia (apparently, I'd need to research that to verify it as fact) and sold at my local farmer's market by the Spice Lady.

I'm going to give making my own vanilla essence a go.