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!

A new chapter begins

Well well well... anyone still stopping by?

Forgive any spelling typos - I'm doing this with one hand as Asher is asleep on my chest!

So I had a baby! Ended up being induced on the 3rd March and after quite a traumatic 16hrs after the first epidural didn't work and they finally found an anethatist to put in another one so that they could increase the drip to progress labour - the last 4hrs of which I was awesomely numb from the waist down, Asher was born with the help of a vaccuum (I couldn't tell if I was pushing - I just made sure I was doing the noises!). Officially, active labour was 8hrs. Anyhoo she's just lovely.

GB and I are blindly feeling our way around this whole parenting caper after 5.5 weeks. Asher's had colic which isn't making things fun but she does have some good days! She's starting to smile now which is great to see. As she's formula feeding GB is helping with the feeds so we each get up once to feed during the night at the moment. In between when she's restless I tend to get up now that GB is back to work. It won't come as a shock to parents out there that we are absolutely exhausted!

Our furbabies are very protective of her, they sometimes get up at night while we feed and if she's crying they come up to see if she's ok. Very cute.

We also celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary last month. We finally indulged in the bottle of Dom Perignon we'd bought duty free on our honeymoon with an antipasto platter we made. So so so good!

Weight wise - I'm down about 10kgs from what I got to at the end of my pregnancy - but that hasn't shifted in a few weeks. My diet is shocking consisting of a big percentage of chocolate! I'm trying to get out each day for a walk with Asher, but sometimes I'm just too tired. Did a 1hr walk today though. My band has been playing silly buggers which is frustrating given I have next to zero fill in. I'm hoping it's just the crazy hormones playing havoc with restriction (I went about 5 days this week not being able to keep anything down) and not a band slip or the pouch dilation which is what I had before the wedding last year.

We've booked a trip to Bali in September so I want to lose at least 10kgs by then.

Anyway, I'll leave you with some more pics of Asher.