Another Bandiversary

It occured to me this morning that it must be close to another bandiversary for me! It happened in March I'm sure. While I was trying to remember the date I realised I couldn't even remember the year! Has it been 3 years? 4 Years? So a quick check of my own blog - March 19th 2008. It's coming up on 4 years!

What a crazy busy four years it has been. Band, Wedding, Baby... oh my! Reflecting on my band now, it really plays such a small part in my life. I have very little fill but I still know it's there, especially when I decide to indulge in some fluffy bread or god forbid a burger! I know I could do with a fill some days as I can get hungry. But at the same time I'm maintaining at this weight and although I would love to be 15kgs lighter and a size 12, maybe I'm just meant to be a size 16 and 86ish kgs. It's manageable. It's not a big deal if for any reason (cranky kid) I don't get to the gym one week. This may change at some stage - but right now... dare I say it... I'm happy with how I am.

It's also our 2nd wedding anniversary coming up on the 20th of this month. We are taking each other out to Rockpool for dinner tomorrow night. I can't wait. Seriously. I can't wait. Wish we were going tonight!

I'm still tossing up on the new blog v this blog. I'm leaning towards a new one for a pretty simple and selfish reason. Longtime readers of this blog may recall that no-one outside my immediate family know about our lapbands. And I still don't really want it out there amongst our friends, but I'd like our friends to get into my blog. So you see, a new one - with no focus on the ol' lapband is really the only way to combat that. Plus the title of this blog kinda just spells it out in the title doesn't! haha. So I hope when the time comes and if I decide to move to a new blog that all my 50 followers (especially the few that comment!) will follow me!

Another post in the same year!

Guess who turned 1 on Sunday?

This kid!

She's a little gem you know. This past year has gone so ridiculously quickly I can't believe it. She's even walking around now (although her bum is getting to know the floor pretty well because she won't slow down!).

Her little birthday celebration went well. Just our immediate family and my mum's group which was really nice. Bloody warm day in Perth (of course) but we had the marquee up so that was awesome for shade.

I'm a bit reticent that this blog is most likely to move away from the trials & tribulations of lapband and more towards my kid, food, travel, whatever. So I'm thinking that I might start another blog. It's not that the lapband stuff isn't important, it's just that I really don't have anything major to report in that area of my life. So what do we think? Keep the extra stuff in this blog or start a new one?

Hello 2012!

Hi guys,

How slack have I been! The good news is that I'm back at work so hope I can get back into weekly blogging! I started back in mid January 3 days per week. 2 days in the office and 1 from home with my mum looking after Asher while I work from home and she goes to daycare while I'm in the office. It's working well so far and I'm quite enjoying have a few days a week of someone else keeping track of food, bottles, nappies etc. I'm job-sharing with the guy who was in my position for the past year. It's a struggle I have to say. We have very different styles and I feel like he doesn't give me all the information. He is also one of those people who seem to know every word in the world and uses them all so much that you really have no idea what he's talking about a lot of the time. I also feel a lot of ownership over my job so I feel like the buck stops with me and frankly I will make final decisions!

This sunday Asher turns 1! Can you believe it's nearly been a year since she was born? I can't. She's such a great kid mostly, with a real personality and she jibber jabbers and sings and dances. Very close to walking, she's taking 3-4 steps by herself but wants to walk holding someone's hand all the time. I've entered into the Bonds Baby Search if you feel so inclined to vote for her - click here. At the moment she's got a chest infection which sucks, it means she can't sleep as well unfortunately although she's still in a pretty good mood. Really hope she'll be better for her birthday. We are having just a low key sausage sizzle at the local park with just our parents, my sisters, GB's brother and my mother's group.

The dogs love her. Well Baxter loves her and Westie tolerates her. Asher & Baxter have cuddles every morning, it's so cute. Westie just had an operation on her knee on Monday. A few weeks ago she snapped her cruciet ligament and we gave it a while on anti imflammatories to see if it would stabilise itself but unfortunately it didn't. When they did the op she also had a meniscal tear in her knee so it never would have healed. So right now's she's groaning under the bed. It's so sad. The pain meds don't seem to be helping much. It's a long road ahead too. The first 2 weeks will be the worst but she won't be back to normal for at least 3 months.

So I know what you're wondering - how's the weight going. Well to be honest, there's not been much change. I'm sitting on around 86kgs which is about 9kgs up from what I was when I fell pregnant and 12kgs from what I was when we were married 2 years ago. But to be honest, I'm lucky. My food is hit and miss. I find the week before my period I can't keep anything down. I haven't been back to the doctor since before Asher was born and I had most of my fill out. I try to do a spin class on mondays and body combat on tuesday nights but I don't like to be out every night of the week. I was doing a pump class on the weekend but I've got bursitis in my shoulder which has been excruciating and the cortisone injection hasn't really improved things so no more pump for me. I will have to try and get back to doing some more exercise on the weekend though. GB is in training this year for the half ironman in May and the full ironman in December both in Busselton. He tries to train in the mornings but usually goes for a long bike ride once on the weekend.

We had a quick visit to Melbourne a couple of weeks ago which was nice but what I'm really looking forward to is Bali for a week in July with a bunch of friends and my sisters and my family from sydney and melbourne are going for my aunty's 60th. We are going to get a nanny to help with Asher so that I can have a bit of a holiday too!

Anyway, that will do for now! I will once again promise to try and get here more often and hope I can touch base on your blogs soon!

Still kicking!

My goodness, I didn't realize how long it had been!

Things going well here. Motherhood and parenting is a tough tough caper. We have good days and bad. All three of us were sick for a week which was hard going! Asher has been teething for months and still no teeth! Makes her a grumpy bub and for a while she was waking up 3-4 times a night but she's back to going to bed at 7pm and sleeping til around 6.30 which is great. She's close to crawling, going backwards but hasn't quite coordinated the forward move! She's just over 7.5 months old now and at 7 months weighed in at 9.6kg so still a giant baby!

We went to Bali for a week in September and had a great time. Asher was a hit with the locals - they all wanted to hold her and kept saying his big she was! I got quite the complex on her behalf!

Weight wise. Ugh. I lost about 5kg on the Michelle bridges program. It should have been more but I found it hard to commit to the training with the weather being too dodgy to do the program outdoors and not having time to do it at home or gym. The program is great and I recommend it if youre not looking after a baby! Still haven't had any fill put in my band because I still struggle with keeping food down a lot of the time. I should probably go back and have a chat and a scan to rule out a slippage but dollars are pretty tight at the moment. I am trying to do some form of exercise at least 4 days a week. Now that the weather is fining up we've been trying to do the 7km river walk at least once a week and then I try to do two classes at gym when Craig gets home from work and once on the weekend. Best laid plans of course!

Speaking of dollars, the plan is for me to go back to work 3 days a week from mid January. As much as I love this kid, I do feel like it would be nice to have something else on my mind! I'm hoping to work one of those days at home and have my mum here to help out with Asher Basher.

Anyway better do some housework while I can! I hope you're all doing well I really do. I'm hoping to get back into blogging regularly and of course reading yours!

I'll try to post some pics, but I'm using the iPad and the formatting looks wonky hope it works!

Out the back sharing toys with Baxter last week

various pics from last couple weeks

Cranking out some shorts while weather is nice

Being Cheeky

Great parenting in Bali

Laughing at Dad

Being a baby is thirsty work

More bintang ? (in Bali)

Pretty in Bali

Perusing the cocktail menu

Striking a pose in a new bali outfit

Walking around in the heat is tiring! (also in Bali)

EDIT - ok posting pics from ipad is near impossible, must see if there's an app!

Long time!

Hey all,

It's been a long time between posts, I know! Hopefully I can find time to post a bit more now that I'm starting to get the hang of this motherhood thing! So what's been going on? Probably best to break this down:

Asher: She's just beautiful. I mean seriously a stunning kid (obviously I'm not biased or anything). She's getting there with her sleep too. She goes down at 7pm and usually makes it to 4am before needing a feed, this morning she slept til 6am! She's 17 weeks old and we've just started her on solids (well rice cereal). Last night she loved it, today she hated it. The look on her face was hilarious. She had her 4 month old vaccinations yesterday and was a little trooper. She's a "giant baby" as I like to call her. Weighed in at 7.8kgs yesterday, but she's also quite long. She's in the 90th percentile on the graphs. Here is a pic of her last week

Westie & Baxter: They're awesome little pooches (when not destroying things) and very good with Asher. They give her little kisses and are very gentle around her. When she's crying they lie by her door or us if we're holding her. Poor buggers are lacking in exercise with the weather being so poop lately and I can't manage the pram and two dogs (especially as Bax walks as if he's never been out of the house before!).

Weight/Exercise: I started the Michelle Bridges (trainer from Australian Biggest Loser) 12 Week Body Transformation about 6 weeks ago. I've lost about 3kgs which should be more except that we went to Melbourne for 11 days in Week 2/3 and I'm finding it very hard to maintain the level of exercise she recommends. I have just joined the local gym though so hoping I can get there when hubby finishes work, although they do have a creche ($5 a visit though) so that's an option too. I've been doing zumba periodically too but feel like an absolute knob!!! I haven't been back to have my band adjusted as sometimes I'm so restricted, I can't imagine having more fill in. To be honest, the shitty eating is mind related and I just need to stop it! 

Anyway, that's all I have time for today. Will try to catch up on everyone's blogs at some stage! Hope all of you are doing well!