January: Survived

Is it just me or did this January seem to go on forever?  I like January, I do, but man alive this was a tough one and I am more than glad it is finally over.

For me January was long, dark, difficult and challenging, but it had its moments of cheer, and coming here to my blog to report on things was, as always, a pleasure.  So here's a little picture summary of my January...







(Unfortunately sleep deprivation is difficult to capture on camera!)  Click on any of the pictures to be taken to the original blog post. 

I am looking forward now to moving on into February - month of love, chocolate and planting things!  Bye bye January, see you next year!

Tomorrow I shall bring you an update on the Big Happy blanket...

Cath Kidston therapy

Every morning, after the baby's morning feed, I make myself the one and only cup of tea I will have time for. I use my extra large CK mug and there's something about it that cheers me immensely...

I love a bit of kitsch first thing in the morning :)

Shortly after Christmas I treated myself to a little something in the Cath Kidston sale.  Looky looky....

You see, my breastfeeding pillow (who we call Valerie, as she is a 'V' shape) had a hideous brown cover.  Yuck.  But now Valerie is resplendant in CK florals! 



She is so beautiful that she is now allowed to sit proudly in the living room all day long...

And somebody else approves too...

Things here are still tough...sometimes the good days outweigh the bad, sometimes the bad outweigh the good.  It's a long road, but we're getting there, slowly slowly.

My mum's first blanket

You see what happens when lost in a haze of baby wrangling?  A week slips by with no blogging!  Shocking.  Fortunately I am able to produce a blog post based on somebody else's hard work and efforts! Hurrah! You see I am not the only creative one in my family. No no! My mum has been rather busy too.  Since I introduced her to the wonders of the interweb for finding patterns she has been knitting up squares of varying designs using leftover yarn with the intention of making a blanket.

Today she sent me the photos she has taken of the finished blanket...

Ta daaaah!  My mum's blanket!  Isn't it fabulous?  Lovely colours and the texture makes you want to reach out and stroke it,bury your feet in it, wrap yourself up in it and demand that tea be brought to you on a tray with the biscuit jar.

And here it is a la Ideal Home magazine styling...

Pretty impressive, huh?  I think my mum could be a craft blogger in the making..!

We'll be heading over to mum's on Sunday for lunch, where the blanket will no doubt be claimed by Lillia immediately.  For Lillia anything pink and snuggly is usually proclaimed to be "mine".

:)

L'il Monkey Blanket in action!

Remember the Li'l Monkey Blanket?  Completed waaaay back in October last year, seems a lifetime ago!

Well Phoebe has been putting it to the test.  Lots of leg kicking and arm wriggling going on atop the blanket...

Yes, she seems most satisfied with it.  It's always lovely to see the things I make in use, getting stamped on, thrown about and sicked on.  It's how it should be :)

6 weeks

Today our new arrival is six weeks old.

Today also marks six weeks of exclusive breastfeeding.  Yup.  Six weeks.  This blog isn't about breastfeeding, or even babies really..except for mine obviously, it being my blog..but it is worth mentioning because these last six weeks have been some of the hardest of my life.  I never thought I would reach four weeks at one point, let alone six.  But with a lot of advice and encouragement from my friends on Twitter and from my fellow bloggers (Gretchen I am pointing at you!) I have made it to my initial six-week target.  Now I am aiming for eight weeks and then...well, then we'll see.  The main thing is I am feeling more positive about it.  Now if I could just get some sleep things would really be looking up :)

I intend to review progress on the Big Happy blanket at the end of each month as we move through the year but I thought this little milestone would be a good time to have a look at how it's going so far...

Not bad, eh?

Ten and a half rows, six colours...

Looking rather sunny and happy and, of course, big!

I have very little time to work on it, but I try to squeeze it in where I can.  It cheers me to see the rows building up.  Lillia chooses the next colour if she is about when I get to the end of a row, she is excited about all of us snuggling up underneath it when it is finished.  So am I, I just keep picturing it months from now, finished, and a happy Future Me.

January

Despite the usual joys and festivities of Christmas coming to an end I usually welcome the month of January.  A lot of people find it a bleak time of year but I see it more as the gateway to a new year and the start of a new road ahead.

This year, despite the obvious difficulties I am facing, is no different.  January has me feeling almost optimistic.  I have a long year ahead - I need to recover, I need to teach a whole new person how to sit, smile, laugh, eat, talk, walk..sleep!  I need to learn to be a mum to two children, to balance their needs and be equal to both of them. 

These early January days are most definitely Baby Days...

Surrounded by the paraphenalia of baby care, I spend my days feeding and talking at a totally unresponsive newborn who looks at me with that withering newborn stare, as if to say, "what are you doing, woman?"

It's not easy.  Little sleep, little clue, lots of guess work and whys and what-ifs.  No smiles yet to give me courage in what I am doing.  Feeding is not without its problems this time around and Phoebe and I endure some miserable battles to feed.  But slowly but surely we are getting there, an hour, a day, a night at a time.

My "winter" candle holders are out on the windowsill.  I will light these in the evenings, what little I see of them, to bring a little festive light to the room and avoid everything looking too bare now the decorations are packed away.

And so begins 2011, I am hopeful for a rewarding one, it's going to be one hell of a 12 months!  I've been looking back at my blog posts over the last year...this time in 2010 I was making my matryoshka dolls and crocheting toilet roll covers.  I really must get around to doing a photo review of makes from the year..just as soon as I've finished changing nappies and shaking rattles of course :)

xx