Pea Pilly Bean * » Sabrina

And for the trifecta

Sarah — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:41:32 +0000

As if my week wasn’t bad enough, this is Sabrina with a hole in her head.

The worst part was it happened in my room while she was in my care. Hello guilty feelings welcome to my stomach. I hadn’t been feeling the best, hey maybe it’s stress ya think, so I rang Glenn and asked him if he could bring dinner home. As my head was spinning I took my self off to bed thinking I would be more likely to recover faster if I gave my body a break. I was going to leave Sabi with the others as they were all being so cute snuggled up watching a movie together but I thought, no that’s way too dangerous now that she has figured out how to open all the cupboards, climb up on the computer desk and abseil down the book shelf. No, I thought I’ll set her up with some toys on the floor in my room WERE SHE’LL BE SAFE.

I thought I was so clever right up until she walked into the wall. That was it, no running involved she simply walked forward, tripped and didn’t stick her hands out. It’s not even like she had the courtesy to make it a decent object lesson, I can’t very well say to the other kids “Look at your sister, That’s what WALKING in the house’ll get ya!”

I knew it was bad before I got to her due to the almighty thwack noise her head made when it met the corner of our not yet finished built in wardrobe wall. That and the blood curdling scream that followed which according to the hospital is good. It’s the first thing they ask “Did she cry?” and you answer “Yes” then they say “that’s good” Yeah great I always love a bawling baby.

I’m getting pretty good at dealing with gaping open wounds as Lilly falls over so often we’ve all re named her Lilly Splat on the Floor. So when the blood was still oozing out like a bubbling lava flow after soaking through half a box of tissues I knew we needed to seek medical attention. I called in the troops and in less than ten minutes Mum and Dad had arrived to look after the other kids (And Yes I know how lucky I am to have them so close) Glenn followed soon after so he was able to hunt for a medical professional with me.

WE thought we’d be able to go to the after hours clinic at the hospital but when we got there the sign on the door said it didn’t open till 8:00pm, it was now 6:30pm. Remembering that there is a few late closing doctors around and really not wanting to go to emergency we hopped back in the car. We got to the first doctors at 6:45 it closed at 6:30 ( the lights were on and they were packing up but the door was locked) We got to the next one at 7:03 and just to make the night so much more fun it closed at 7:00 so Emergency it was.

Emergency is a happening place, it is so the coolest place to hang out, must be all the seats were full. They do have a penned off baby area but after a quick glance at the feverish hacking and coughing children that inhabited it there was no way I was letting her walk around in there. Some people have those rare and highly valued Sit On Your Lap babies I don’t so I spent the next hour pacing the hall outside the toilets. FUN. Every time she got to the end and touched the wall she cracked up laughing and we weren’t allowed to walk back till we went into the change room and said “AHH HA” and did a little dance.

We were still yet to be seen at 8:00pm so we told the nice desk nurse that we’d be off now and she seamed quite happy to cross someone off the list. We got to the clinic just before the doors opened and waited in the dark till someone let us in. We were the first to be seen and the doctor and nurse were lovely. They looked a little unsure of how to keep a baby still while gluing it back together and wondered if the wiggles would help. I showed them how I could wrap her up tight in a sheet, pin her down by laying my body over her and hold her head still with my hands. I must admit I felt a wave of pride when the doctor said with surprise “Wow the Mum’s an expert” only now that I think about it being the best at holding small children still so they can be glued back together really isn’t the best thing to be proud of.

Take you riding in my car

Sarah — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:32:56 +0000

We used to be a family that drove places. Out to the country to see the spotty cows, up the mountain just to look out over where we had come from. The kids would soak in the spectacle of our corner of creation as it slid past the windows. They would increase their sense of belonging in this world, peppering us with questions of why and how till they tired and drifted off to sleep. Then Glenn and I would talk again as dreamers imagining our path to the future.

Now we drive TO places, we choose the shortest root. We try to get home before the sun sets because the dark scares you so. We sit someone on either side of you, holding your hand, stroking your hair. We always bring purple blankie so we can play endless games off peek a boo. We hope and pray that someday soon you won’t try and clamber back up Mummy’s neck as I click you into the car. I’m not writing this to make you feel bad bubby, we all are forever thankful that you are here. In fact the concern your brother and sisters show for your baby tears melts Mummy’s heart. I’m just recording time, noting memories, besides in the future you may have a baby that screams hysterically in the car and then I can say ~~Ha Ha!~~ I feel your pain.

Moments that melt your heart

Our deepest thanks to Mr. Richard Dean Anderson, oh and Happy Easter.

Sarah — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:14:43 +0000

Yes I know I’m a little behind in my Easter well-wishing but once you read this story you might just understand why.

Easter and more specifically the whole egg laying part and our family do not mix. Don’t get me wrong I like Easter, who wouldn’t like a day were consuming copious amounts of chocolate is not only allowed but encouraged. Also and massively more importantly Easter is an opportunity to express our joy and gratitude to God for never giving up on us. However I don’t have the best track record for getting it right.

For example the year we acquired our intelligence-challenged spaniel, rejected from the show ring due to a wonky tooth, our kids were lucky to get any eggs at all. We had left the whole egg laying caper a little late so some time past midnight I found myself hurriedly cramming eggs into tiny caves found along the bookshelves. After hiding away over half of our tiniest eggs and running thin on obvious egg spots in our little lounge room I turned to do a visual sweep of the room. When I turned I came face to face with a silent and very guilty faced brown hairy mutt. He had been shadowing me all night, so close behind that I hadn’t noticed, and as I placed each egg he silently gobbled it up again. I must have spun around faster than he expected because there we were standing face to face, me with my surprised mouth gaping his full of shiny foil and dripping chocolate. After a slightly panicked search of the room we came to realize that every cleverly thought of place of concealment had just as cleverly been robbed by the dog. Luckily we hadn’t put out any of the big eggs and Glenn and I made up the difference from our own secret stash, the things parents do.

Most of the other horror stories involve the same pedigree mutt but take place the day after Easter and could be titled “The Mysterious Disappearance of all of Eli’s Eggs” so this year I was determined to outsmart the hairy one and have a tearless and smiley faced Easter. Before the eggs were hidden we secured the woefully sad and pleading eyed dog behind the baby gate, we found suitable containment for each of the children’s stashes and even cleared a space high up on the hall cupboards shelf for the egg bags to go later. We started earlier and had fun setting up the kids favourite toys with bunny ears and a little collection of eggs to great them at the table. When we had finished Glenn and I looked at each other and I think that one of us may have even said “Right I think it’s time for bed”

Cue baby.

Um, she’s a soprano by the way, oh and boy can she sing!

As the clock ticked over to 12 the baby woke. No big deal she does this every night, I give her a feed, she goes back to sleep.

Not this night, not no way. She chooses Easter eve to cut two massive molars, teeth in our family come with at least six points. Not only would she not sleep but there was no consoling her. The only time she was quiet was when one of us had her wrapped up in our arms and jogged back and forth across the family room. Sitting was entirely out of the question, I mean what horrible parent would want to sit down at 2:00 in the morning anyway, how selfish. I realised with a horrible sinking feeling that dealing with miss screamy bags was up to me alone. Glenn was running the projector at church in the morning and the Easter service is probably not the best one to fall asleep in mid-song.

As I jealously waved my husband off to bed I looked around for something that might drown out the screaming and keep me sane while I didn’t sleep. Our TV has had it, so after watching all the new releases at the video store that we could bare to play we’ve been working our way through whatever old TV shows we come across in the shop and go, “Hey wow do you remember that one?” Our current nostalgia grab is MacGyver.

I tightened my grip on the hysterical octopus I was attempting to rock back to sleep and pressed play. She squirmed through the opening credits but it was alright I had gained a boost from the memory of childish excitement that the theme music conjured up. Then something totally amazing happened. As a bushwhacking MacGyver began his opening monologue, something about him and Pete being bestest buddies and the need to always have a stash of chewing gum on hand, the baby stoped screaming. She didn’t sleep but while that guy was dashing around on the screen wielding the laws of physics and a mullet big enough to scare the pants of any hardened criminal she was happy. In fact when one disc finished she screamed until I put the next one in. I’m now worried about her and think we might get her psychologically assessed.

So I would like to officially thank Mr Richard Dean Anderson for stopping the screaming, allowing me to display supreme parenting skills by dozing on the couch while the baby watched TV and for being being my kids first TV crush.

Oh yeah and three days after Easter the dog ate all of Lilly’s eggs but she didn’t cry and the other kids shared out their remaining eggs of their own volition, so I call this year a win. HAPPY EASTER!!!!

An independent eater…..

Sarah — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:08:25 +0000

…..sort of

How do you guys make this thing work???

No related posts.

Quick catch up on what we have been up to.

Sarah — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:22:07 +0000

Thinking of creative ways to help Lilly learn her letter sounds and form. This has mostly involved food and has all been Lani’s idea, she even asked if we could have eggs for lunch and she has never liked them, go figure.

Plasticine Dotty Dolls on D Day.

Our Letter Land tree.

We are in the middle of moving rooms, it’s a bit like placing all members of the family in a blender and pressing ON.

Lilly and Eli will end up together but at the moment while we paint he is in our room with the baby and the furniture, toys and other paraphernalia that used to live in his room is now in the passage way. It makes going to the toilet in the middle of the night so much fun.

Oh yes and the lawn mower broke so we have to keep sending our search parties to locate Sabrina.

On the twelfth day of Sabrina…

Sarah — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:34:27 +0000

…my true love gave to me, a waving at you baby.

But not too much or anything, we wouldn’t want you guys to get to excited.

Lani, Eli and Lilly have been…um…how shall I put this. ~~Pestering the life out of her~~ teaching her to wave her hand since the moment we brought her back from the hospital and had that conversation. The one that when a little like this:

Me "So do you guys like your new baby sister?"

General collective response "Yeah, what does she do?"

Me " Well nothing yet give her a chance, she’s just getting over the worst day of her life"

(I’m pretty sure this was Lilly) "But when will she say hello?"

Me " Oh not for a long time, first she’ll learn to roll over, babble a bit, learn to sit up, learn to crawl, learn to wave her hand and then she’ll talk to you"

So there you have It guys. All my fault, and my only advice to you is this, never give your older children a list of things to accomplish with their new baby, you just don’t need that kind of stress.

Now she does it, very quickly and when hardly anyone is looking, She’ll waggle those little hands in the air for a second then laugh in all our faces as the whole family lines up in front of her madly flapping their hands and chanting, "Come on you can do it!, YOU CAN DO IT!" It’s going to be crazy around here when she does speak or worse enter her first sporting competition.

So tomorrow my baby will graduate officially from the class of Baby and head off on a year of Oh She’s Not A Baby Anymore, and to celebrate we let Alanah plan a party for her. So tomorrow we will have a few little friends around to the LAND OF MAGICAL CREATURES to party with Sabrina the Unicorn Princess and attempt to unwrap a pass the parcel, should be fun with one year olds. Wish me luck.

On the tenth day of Sabrina…

Sarah — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:50:38 +0000

…my true love gave to me, an artistic baby.

Sabrina’s first but I’m sure not the last self portrait with textas.

She also learnt to pull herself up this month making homework time at the coffee table a thing of the past.

Her crawling became more adventurous finally having a go at getting around on that prickly tickly green stuff.

*** I swear I didn’t dress her in that top every day this month, she just happened to do all the cool things while wearing it, honest.***

Oh and the foot fetish continued. (Photo of Sabrina dressed as Thing 1 taken moments before she attacked)

On the ninth day of Sabrina…

Sarah — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:36:24 +0000

…my true love gave to me, a toe sucking baby.

Actually the toe sucking wasn’t new to this month, about the first thing she did after her birth was stick her toe in her mouth. I think the toe is to blame for her being so late to roll over. She would start the process of rocking around on her back then, using the momentum she had built up she would flip onto her side. To complete the flip right over onto her stomach she would bring her legs up, I guess the theory was to quickly kick them back down giving her body the extra boost to get over. I never found out if her theory held any merit because when ever she tried this manoeuvre she would get distracted by the feet. "OH Look TOES!! nom nom nom" and it was all over, no rolling baby for at least half an hour while she gnawed on her feet.

No, the new thing for this month came with the increased mobility and there fore increased curiosity. Now everything went in the mouth. Oh look building blocks, stick it in the mouth, oooo play doh tasty, oh look a dog, I wonder what that tastes like? NOM NOM NOM.

And Shoes! (Sorry for all those not keen on excessive punctuation but this really deserves the exclamation mark) She was, and still is really (I’m so hoping this is not a life long thing) completely and utterly addicted to shoes. Whenever they were left lying around she’d be there giving them a good old suck.

As she got better at moving around would she crawl to her toys? no, she made a bee line to the shoe box and pulled them all out. But worse than that whenever we had a visitor dare to enter the mayhem that is our house she would, under the cover of hyped up older sibling story telling, latch herself onto there feet, tiny prickly baby nails snaring the lip of the shoe impossible to prize off, and while the poor guests exclamations when from "Oh darling you really don’t want that in you mouth" to "AHHH for goodness sake get it off, GET IT OFF!" she would would proceed to smear baby slobber all over there fancy new shoes, not unlike the gloop that green ghost from ghost busters produced, only less green.

I was really worried that sibling jealousy or at least annoyance would kick as she got around more and put whatever they were trying to play with in her mouth. But we have been so blessed with children to distracted by adoration to notice. Yay for Dorable Sporina the Unicorn princess (Eli’s name for her) you are too cute.

On the eighth day of Sabrina…

Sarah — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:16:14 +0000

…my true love gave to me, a no way are you going to get me to sit still for a photo now that I can get about, baby.

On the 7th day of Sabrina…

Sarah — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:10:55 +0000

My true love gave to me, a rocking…

rocking…

rolling…

all the way…

over…

baby.

Finally.

She took her time with the rolling over and made us all stress about her lack of movement but we’ll forgive her because she’s so cute.