Where do the days go?

Hi all, and apologies for the lack of communication!!  Arabella I know I promised to post once a week but honestly, the past month seems to have been sucked up in a big vacuum! I think you can all relate!

Lovely that you (Arabella and Bookie-bird) are back in Lavrio and settling in. Must be wonderful to have each other for company and Bookie-Bird, to be able to go out and explore somewhere new and also settle into your first home in ages. Wonderful stuff!

Well, I don't know what we have been up to, but clearly time has passed. Little Chickie is now 7 months old and more delightful than ever. She is so tall - officially off the growth charts (above 97th percentile). She is super vocal, still in training for the Operatics.  Clearly loves the sound of her own voice, as does her mamma. So cute. Although she has two new favourite sounds which makes her sound decidedly Afrikaans:- 'ugg' and also 'guh', really guttural. I think she knows I don't like those two and keeps repeating them over and over. Chickie is crawling backwards which is a great source of frustration for her ... also likes to practice her crawling in her cot when she should be sleeping, or even whilst sleeping! Hopefully this phase will pass soon as her nights are not always restful as a result. Most exciting though is that she has now dropped her night time feed and on a whole two occasions has managed to go for 11 hours without waking, though most nights we still have to get up and remind her that it's sleep time not crawling time. She is loving her food (smooth no lumps, lumps cause whole meal to get regurgitated, nice). Also insisting on feeding herself now which is so, so messy. I have to keep reminding myself that the mess is my issue not her issue and little Chicks needs to explore, hence let her feed herself then straight to the bath. We've had to put the Bumbo away now Arabella as someone has figured out how to extricate herself, so Chickie now gets strapped into her high chair, tightly.

Arabella you'd be so impressed to know that in a moment of creative madness I bought one of those magazine things 'The Art of Crochet' - you know first issue is only $2.99 and comes with free crochet hook, two balls of wool and DVD. Thereafter subsequent magazines cost you a gazillion dollars but I figure the first one should contain just enough info to satisfy my curiosity. That said, I've yet to open it, but hey, it's there waiting for me!  I also spent about a dozen hours looking at all your fabric sights trying to decide on some fabric for a wall hanging for chickies room. Wow, that's a time waster! So hard to choose, I had a short list and a short, short list. Then in the end I decided to go with stick on wall decals, so gorgeous, then discovered that they are not recommended for cement render which is of course, what we have. Despite that I am currently trialling some to see how long they stay stuck for. One week down the line the sample piece is still firmly attached to wall ... do you think this means it will stay there long term?

I am very proud of myself, having dug deep and found some motivation hidden in the depths within, I joined the little local gym today! It is my intention to loose about a hundred kilos and become fabulously fit, toned and healthy , heck, I might even become a swim suit model at some point in the next few weeks. Seriously though, I thought it was about time I did something serious about getting into some form of semi decent shape again, and reclaim the stomach muscles that I know are hiding beneath the layers of jelly. I begin with a Pilates class tomorrow morning, hopefully it is going to be good, having just committed to a years contract. Maybe I should have tried a class first!   Oh well. My MIL will look after Chickie on a Tue morning so I can do the pilates, then I'm going to try and go either early or late when hubby is home, at least twice more in the week. Mmm, we shall see how this goes!

On an even more exciting note, I have just this afternoon managed to get a cleaner sorted again, he begins Friday. Yay! I have become a slave to the house (actually that is where my time has gone this past month now that I think about it). It seems some days all I do is clean the house. Now, as Arabella knows, I rather like housework, but since Chickie came along, it is increasingly hard to find the time to clean, and I don't want her to remember her early years being all about housework, as fun as that can be!

Anyway, I must go and do something about dinner.Sorry for the poor grammar etc in this blog but I'm multitasking as I write this, and something has to give.

Love to all, happy exploring!

New Mum Chick (NMC)