Disco Knitter

Just got home from our weekend of parties, too tired to even look at the camera – so here are some preliminary (and gorgeous) pics from our darling Fiona.

At 2:18pm last year, you changed my life forever. It’s been a wild ride, and at times I have questioned the sanity of choosing to go through it all, but you’re totally worth it.

You rock my world little guy, and I hope you don’t hate me one day for the outfit I am planning to dress you in today.

I haven’t turned on the news this morning, but the world seems a very scary place right now.

Yesterday Emily, Clare, Mark and I were having dinner discussing threat and danger, and how threat perception becomes a different thing when you are a parent, our protective instincts drive us to irrational thoughts and sometimes actions. Now that the media brings the rest of the world into our living rooms, it becomes harder and harder to dismiss threats, real or imagined, when most of us can recall an incident of something nasty happening somewhere around the world. It is VERY unlikely that a child will be abducted from the streets, and very few of us will actually know a family that this has happened to – and yet we all fear it.

Luckily, no-one we know is stuck in Mumbai or Bangkok, and I hope all the people that were involved in the horror smash we saw on the Harbour Bridge last night are safe and recovering well.

And I hope that despite all the trauma in the world, we can continue to embrace the joy and love, rather than the fear and hatred.

One more day of racing around preparing for the infant birthday of the century (for me at least!), and I’ll be very glad to relax and celebrate a year of life with Inigo.

OK, this happened weeks ago, but hey, I’ve been busy.

Everybody looked awesome, but these two would have got my vote if there was a competition.

Jemima and Big Ted

The Wicked Witch of the Westie, Nearly Headless Nick


The Absinthe Fairy

Bristol Palin & Levi Johnson

Miss Helen


The food was AWESOME. Must remember to get the baked beans recipe from Kris.


Brains!

According to a new study, referred to in this Washington Post article, breastfeeding has a positive influence on children’s behaviour, and it could be cumulative.

I know a few kids that were “full term” breast-fed that could challenge that theory – but maybe they might have been worse on formula

And in other news, I also found an article that talks about PTSD in women after a traumatic birth experience.

I’m clearly doing much better now, but I think that PTSD (or something similar) is a much more fitting way of describing how I’ve been feeling for most of the last year than PND.

A dear friend had her 6 week checkup (something every woman has with a GP, 6 weeks after birth), and when her doctor asked how she felt, she said “it was awful, and I feel traumatised”. The doctor said “hmm”, and carried on with the exam. Take that sentence, and say it to a doctor in any other context, and I’d be stunned if there wasn’t some sort of medical follow up, at the very least a suggestion that the patient might want to talk to a mental health professional. But this doctor didn’t, maybe because it’s expected that women will be traumatised by their birth experience.

And that’s not OK. I wish I knew what to do about it.

2 X-Rays, no rock.

Either

a) I am delusional, there was no rock (I’m pretty certain there was a rock, despite my delusions), or
b) The rock has “passed” (pretty sure that I would have noticed), or
c) The rock wasn’t visible to the machine. It was quartz, apparently it happens.

Anyway, kid is full of the joys of spring, so its very unlikely that there is any harm done. Yet.

But you still can’t get married.

Last night the senate “abolished same sex discrimination”, and “extended the meaning of de-facto to include same-sex relationships”.

Unfortunately, they still don’t understand the meaning of the word “equal” when it applies to GLBTI.

Good day today – Aqua-aerobics, kid had 2 good sleeps, got through some tough challenges on the wii fit. I even got a few loads of washing done.

I should have known I was asking for trouble when I tried to get some gardening done too.

Inigo was in his cage, I was killing grass in preparation for planting some parsley, when I noticed that he had a rock in his mouth.

I raced over, threw off my gardening gloves, and reached out to him, just as he toppled over backwards. I picked him up, prised open his mouth, and found nothing.

The little blighter had swallowed it.

I’ve spoken to my GP, apparently any nasty side effects should be fairly obvious, so if he’s in pain, or spewing (more than usual), we’re off to hospital. Otherwise, a trip to the GP tomorrow for an x-ray referral and check up.

Please keep everything crossed that I make it to Saturday.

What a week!

Ages ago, the lovely Emily gave us some tickets to A View of Concrete at the Belvoir St Theatre, because she and Clare were heading back to Old Blighty for a week of thrills and spills (or words to that effect). We asked my parents to sit on the kid for a few hours, and life was good.

And then on Monday, Kate rang to ask if we’d like tickets to another show on Friday. Is the space pope reptilian? Of course we would! Bev & Ted took the kid for round 2, who was apparently quite charming.

Both shows were great, but A Dissapearing Number was probably the best live theatre I have ever seen. Technical whizzbangery, great performances, a compelling, profound, and human story, and sublime music by Nitin Sawhney.

We’ve been so inspired that we’ve booked tickets to Rabbit for next year. Cheap ones, but hey…

Best caption wins a little something from the stash.

It’s OK – the cage is DoCS approved

Andrew the Fairly Odd Mother bought this for Inigo a few weeks ago, and I finally got a picture of him in it. Lucky I did – about 30 minutes later it was drenched in my morning coffee, I had a lapse of concentration due to missing my morning coffee

We’ve had a few kids parties recently, and due to the constraints of living on one income, I’ve tried to use materials at hand to make presents and cards that aren’t too crappy.

Of course, I love the end result, and would be thrilled if anyone made similar things for me, but I have to rely on people to appreciate my warped sense of colour and style.

Here are a few examples.

Birthday card for James, Gouache on Paper, 2008. Collection of James, Granville, Aged One.

Party outfit for Ursula, Cotton, Micro Suede, Lycra, Elastic, 2008. Collection of Ursula, Neutral Bay, Aged 7 Months.

Library Bag for Josiah. Cotton and Acrylic Ribbon, 2008.
Birthday Card for Josiah. Gouache on Paper, 2008. Collection of Josiah of Granville, aged 1 year.

I also made a Library bag for Hunter, but some idiot forgot to get a picture.

Going through my spam folder tonight, I spied an email that started “Hi Lara, thanks to the nomination” – but I spied it just as I pressed the “Delete Forever” button.

So if it was you that sent it, please resend!

There has been some sad news Chez Discoknitter – Rhubarb the Macbook is in a coma. His power supply got really hot and melted, and it now no longer supplies power, so no laptop. I’ve moved the desktop into the front room, but it doesn’t have my news feeds, bookmarks, or passwords on it. Or my main email account. So bear with me while I struggle through.

In good news, the desktop is the one with the pictures on it, so prepare for some picture heavy posts.

I’ve been tagged.

From Fe – The idea is that you go to your Flickr account (or equivalent) and find the sixth photo on the sixth page. And then (as Guera did) you go to your photo folders on your own computer and find the sixth photo in the sixth folder.

Kangaroo at Dawn, Emerald Beach

One of a series taken for a photographic competition. Not particularly thrilled with this one, though I did get some shots I was happy with.

Joining date 18/10/08
Weight 118.0kg

Weigh in date 25/10/08
Weight 115.7kg
Loss 2.3kg
Net Loss 2.3kg

Weigh in date 1/11/08
Weight 117.1kg
Gain 1.4kg
Net Loss 0.9kg

Weigh in date 8/11/08
Weight 113.7kg
Loss 3.4kg
Net Loss 4.3kg

That’s 4.3kg in three weeks folks!

Hoyden about Town has a great post about Salma Hayek, who is “still” breastfeeding her daughter at 13 months.

I always thought I’d stop breastfeeding when the kid grew teeth, I certainly never thought I’d still be breastfeeding when he turned one, and I never dreamed I’d be feeding him for two years. But that is what the World Health Organisation recommends, and it’s particularly relevant for kids with allergies in the family. It’s what the paed recommends, so that’s what we’ll do.

And I hope that my experience adds to the general acceptance of breastfeeding beyond 6 months.

In typical slapdash Lara fashion, I’ve just gone through my address book and facebook contact list, and randomly sent invitations. Of course, this means that I will have forgotten some important people, and there are also some people that I don’t have current email addresses for.

So if you haven’t received your invitation yet, leave a comment (and I’ll get your email address), and then I can rectify the situation.

Apologies in advance.

Get yourself over to Fe’s blog – she has posted some gorgeous pics from our visit last week.