very clean

thats what i am after 2 baths (貸し切り露天風呂 and 大浴場) tonight. k had 3!(she went in with J too). prob have 1 tomorrow morn too.
reminds me a bit of my time in oita.
J even commented that we should do this at least once every 3months. Gee imagine how clean we would be then. haha!

5 mins later

I am waiting in car as J makes has a brief interlude at cainz home centre to buy weed killer for out front of house. dont know what possesed me to blog abt it tho.... haha.

impromptu road trip

and onsen 旅行.
j found a last minute deal on the net last night. we havent been to an onsen 4 ages.
just had lunch@ ringer hut (gotta scrimp somewhere) and now at a 道の駅 called 伊豆のへそ! nothing here but the name made me laugh.
right another hour or so until we reach the hotel. at least both kidlets asleep(gotta luv the car sometimes)

can hardly believe it

at 8:15am on a Monday morning and I actually have a few minutes to myself.

L is sleeping after a morning boobie session

K is still asleep in the bed, despite J leaving for work already (she normally wakes up when he gets up)

and my parents are gone (left Sat, boo-hoo)

So I am sitting with a cuppa and a Hato-sabure (the pigeon butter biscuits from Kamakura) to start my day in peace.

And now I can't think of anything to write, lol!!

Well, I will be trying to spend at least some of the day cleaning up our finances/paperwork which has gone to the shitpile since my parents got here/baby was born etc. Had a few overdue bills etc in there too. Oops. My mummy brain means that I can't remember much, or concentrate on much either so things tend to get put in the pile and left there. Our budgeting for the last 2 months has also gone to shit. This was kinda to be expected with more people in the house and doing lots of non-regular other things. And we were kinda off to a good start with the budget thing too, even getting close to the 6000yen a week for food.

Doh, K has just woekn up and is coming down the stairs - right, mummy T is being called into action. Might be calling on higher powers (a.k.a. DORA) today to get me through and to get anything done while I am at it ;-)

At least I got a sip of my sable and a bite of my tea (ykwim, haha)

more bullets

I reckon I've got a good, oh, 2 mins to update before L decides to let me know that it is "all about him", haha. For now, at least, he sleeps, so I will try:

L had his first trip to a shrine today, at 3 weeks old. We went sightseeing in Kamakura. He also had his first BF at a shrine, lol. I remember we took K out sightseeing with my parents to Asakusa when she was about 2 or 3 weeks old, and I was BFing her outside the main shrine there too. Too funny.

J rang up 4:30pm on Friday afternoon - on the home phone (bcoz I have a habit of leaving my mobile on manner mode so never hear it ring, oops). Was a bit worried why he was ringing at that time of day, thought something might have happened.....turned out he had just got a phone call from his boss (who himself was o/s on a bus. trip) with a decree to go to Indonesia for a trade fair. From Monday. So he leaves tomorrow morning, for a week. Gets back the day my folks leave, next Saturday. (sigh)

Made the trek out to playgroup during the week - was great to catch up with everyone, and show off L ☺
After playgroup, we walked around the shops for a bit too, so it was a long day in the end, but worth it! Although I passed out that night, and had trouble waking up Fri morning too (was actually woken by FIL's 100 or so phone calls - he was ringing to ask if it was convenient for him to come over and do some plumbing work here, (he is fixing up the outdoor garden hose connections etc).Granted, it was 9am or so, so any normal person would be awake, but I wonder why he thought after me not answering the first 5 calls to my mobile OR the call to the home phone that it might be convenient?? He just kept calling until he got me anyway, and came over anyway, so we were stuck in the house Fri while he did all the work. DOn't want to sound ungrateful as he has done a fab job of insalling hoses on the balcony, and in the backyard, but it is never at our convenience.....(see below)

RANT starts here:
On Sat the PIL both came over - was supposed to be the last time to see my parents, so we were gonna have lunch. Also a kind of late mother's day, since they were away last weekend. When I spoke face to face to FIL on Fri, I said that it would be better to do lunch, as L gets a bit fussy in the evenings, and also he wants to be nursed more often. I suggested a bbq at home, as going out for lunch is a bit 面倒くさい too, but he said that I should discuss with J when he gets home from work and get back to him (Why can things never be decided, always takes 4 or 5 times to get anything decided argh!)

Ater J's phone call that he was going on a sudden business trip, I knew that he would be late home Fri night, so rang FIL after dinner to say that we would just do lunch on Sat, prob go out somewhere as not enough time to prepare anything now, and that they should come by around 10:30am or so.

So come Sat morning, and they don't turn up until nearly 11:30am, with 2 boxes of donuts...Give them about 10mins here, and then FIL "suggests" that we go out for DINNER instead and just have something light (perhaps donuts?) for lunch.

I lost it. What is the fricken point of me sitting there the day before telling him that evenings are not so good, so lets do lunch, when they arrive and want to change the whole thing to suit themselves anyway????? If we go out for dinner, it means getting home late too, so K doesnt get to bed until too late, L being fussy, and someone having to prob hold him the whole time at the restaurant, and the biggest fear I had was that it would mean that PIL would stay o/night too. I am just not ready to have them stay over here, with my parents too, and me up half the night with L, and then have PIL up at 4am (coz they dont sleep) fart-arsing around the house, AND I would have had to get the futons out for them, and there is nowhere for them to sleep as I am in the spare room with L at the moment anyway. Just everything that prob doesnt seem like much now I have written it down, but man it pissed me off. They are nice people, and the do a lot for us, but it is often unwanted help. Take the backyard for example. They NEVER listen to how J wants it done. FIL just does it the way he wants to. Then they get upset and say we don't like the way they have done it - but they won't listen to our requests or opinions anyway.

I worked out the problem with them is that they don't OFFER to help/do things, they TELL US that they are doing the things for us. You can't politely turn them down, as they just won't listen. It is the same thing with going to their house and being GIVEN a cup of green tea/tea/coffee...as opposed to going to someone's house and being offered a cuppa "would you like a tea or coffee?". With PIL we just don't get a choice.

Anyway, the whole "lets go out for dinner instead" pissed me off, I got the shits, had a blow-out with J, yaddi-yaddah, you know the score. In the end we went out for lunch anyway (I guess I got my way, right?) and they left early evening to go home. I felt bad after having lost my stack with them, but man they get to me sometimes.

Oh and the best thing - as they were leaving yesterday afternoon, they turn around to TELL me that they will come back Sat morning (the day J gets back at 11am from Indonesia, and my parents leave around 4pm to go to Narita) to say good bye to my folks and bring presents for them. Oh, and that we should "DO LUNCH" then too. ARRRRGGHHH.

END RANT

L has woken up while I am writing this and is now asleep again on my chest. Cuddly little koala that he is ♥] but now I am getting tired and want to lie down....might try it in case I can get a whole 10mins in before it is boobie time again. The fun!!

talking about boobies, after nearly a whole week of pumping and resting, managed to get back to BF from Tues this week, and have been nursing at all but one feed a day (still get Nanna to give him a bottle of ebm around dinner time so I can get the prep done). Phew it has all settled down and we are back on track with that.

Dont even know if this post is gonna make any sense. Have some serious mumy brain going on at the mo. J asked me to get the bath ready for him and K while he went to the shop to buy some milk (which we had fully run out of) and onions for the curry he was making for dinner (thanks j, yum!), I nodded and said "sure" then promptly forgot about it, so he came home expecting a bath drawn, but instead had to clean out the tub himself, oops. Not to mention my lack of focus/concentration for anything/everything.

baby's got a name (and other tidbits)

♥ the baby formally known as tj-baby now has a proper name!! Managed to get his name finalised on the last day of GW, so I could register it at city hall on Thursday morning (SO far ahead of the 4pm deadline, lol!!) It was a really hard decision - lots of names thrown around, but many of them either names of other kids we know, or names that I liked J would veto, and names that he suggested I would baulk at. And the one name I had thought of before he was born (and really liked) just didn't seem to suit him, so I couldn't use that one. In the end, we came up with 3 names to choose from. Actually, J, K and I went so far as to pull them out of a hat on Wed morning trying to make the decision, but the ol' "best of 3" routine still didn't resolve our dilemma and we had to nut it out amongst the three names anyway. So we went with "L" in the hopes that it will be an international name, and as the kanji for it was better than any kanji we could come up for with one of the other names, and the third name J decided he didn't like it so much in the end anyway.

♥ despite the fact that baby now has a name, he still gets called "the baby" a lot, haha.

♥ and we didn't intentionally try to use letters in alphabetical order when naming baby, but my blog title is now "T JKL R" which kinda made me laugh.

♥ L's umbilical cord came off on Wed evening. Had to take him to the docs for a quick check up (don't remember doing that with K) and all is ok.

♥ L has been a trouper all weekend - we went to the beach looking for clams on Sat morning, but unfortunately there was none there (well, there was only shells left), so we headed out to IKEA for the afternoon. L basically slept the whole time! And today we went out shopping in the morning to "Donkey" (my folks love this shop, lol!) and lunch at local ramen joint and again L was quiet as a mouse the whole time.

♥ I am still having bf issues - having split nipples is not fun! It makes for difficulties, as am pumping for each feed at the moment, trying to let the splits heal. Was quite upset over the whole thing Thurs last week, but a trip to the clinic for advice later and a few days of"ganbaruing" and things seem to be improving. Still not fully healed yet but hoping we can get through this in the next few days with no more issues and get back to bf-ing. It sucks because I had (different) bf-ing issues with K, and it took 3 months or so before I was comfortable feeding her. This time I thought it would be easy, and BAM! along comes a totally different curve ball that I wasn't expecting.

♥ hoping to head out tomorrow morning to Babies 'r'us for a looksies. Also think I need to buy a pair of pants to tide me over as seriously nothing fits, and after weighing myself today I found that I have now put on a kilo - yikes!! Wanna get this flab moving, but until that happens, I need something to wear.

♥ speaking of flab moving, I still have the dark line down my tummy (had to move the flab there to check it was all the way down, haha) Don't remember it sticking around after K.....wonder if it will fade/disappear eventually?

random mum & baby stats

Day 12 and things are going great.

K is a fantastic big sister- she helps get nappies, always wants to cuddle or pat the baby, tells me whenever he is crying (in case I didn't know, lol)

managed our first "3-way" today...me, K and baby all went down for a nap at the same time, haha! Not sure how often this will happen, but it was good.

I gained about 14kg overall, and only dropped 4kg after birth. Currently weighing in at minus 7kg. Only another 7kg to go to pre-birth weight. I lost a lot more to start with when K was born so am finding that I am really struggling for clothes to fit as I am in between sizes now - maternity clothes a bit big, but regular clothes still far to "pitchi-pitchi". Hope this weight comes off soon (but figure that with recent aquisition of more costco cookies and muffins that it won't come off THAT quick! oh well!)

so far we have done 1 and a half days of cloth nappies (Cloth Diapering = CD). Am hoping to do CD during the day at home, and disposables for night and when we are out and about. I realised on day 1 of CD-ing that some kind of nappy liner would be useful, so yesterday we bought some Pigeon brand disposable liners. They seem to work well and make cleaning poopy nappies easier for sure. May consider washable liners down the track, but for now they will do fine.

Merries new born nappies are the best fit at the moment. I also bought Moonie and Goon, but they are too wide and short, whereas the merries are longer and leaner fit on bubs.

Bubs is a lot more alert the last 2-3 days, more awake time, lots of looking around, and kicking (kicked his blankets off already!) Very good baby so far (TOUCH WOOD) doesn't cry or fuss that much and def. more settled than K ever was, even at this age. Sleeps well during the night, waking up around 3am and 6am or 7am for feeds. The 7am feed is the one that gets to me the most - so not a morning person!

I wrongly assumed that having bf-ed K until she was 14months, I would have nipples of steel and have no issues this time....but baby boy is such a good sucker, that he gave them a real work out, and I had to let the puppies have a few days rest when we got home from hospital and espress milk instead to try to save them before they got TOO cracked and sore. We seem to be back on track now, but I am still pumping for about one feed a day, just to give me a break, and Nanna some bottle time with bubs!

he is not so good at burping, so if he has a bottle, he often ends up with a little tummy pain that wakes him an hour or more after he has finished the bottle. Is much more settled when bf-ed.

had our first trip away from home on Sunday night to visit PIL - stayed overnight and came back yesterday afternoon. It did take it out of me though, and I slept until 10am this morning, then had an afternoon nap too. What a weak effort I am!! Then again, the paraphernalia from the hospital did say I was only supposed to lie on the futon and get up for feedings and nappy changes only for the first weeks....and I ended up helping with dinner and vacuuming at PILs! (While I make my mum do it for me here at home, lol).Will have to make up for all my efforts with another 2 days of lounging on the sofa at home here now :-)

and, yes, bubs still remains nameless!!! It may well be the case that we are running down to city hall at 4pm Thurs afternoon (a.k.a. d-day, day 14 after birth) to register his name. But we are making progress - there are at least 2 names that we both like, plus 1 or 2 others each that we can put a case forward for. So I am sure tomorrow we will make the decision - well, we have to, right? haha!!!!!