Third Time's The Charm

Before you have kids you have all these great ideas about how you THINK your going to raise your offspring; no junk food, no sugar, always sleep in their own bed, perfect clean white clothes, you will still get up and style your own hair every morning, baby will eat lots of fruit and vegetables, no dummy after 12 months, you werent gonna have a toddler walking around with a baby bottle, they will sleep in the pram so you can still go out at night, you will never bribe your child with food, breastfeeding only, etc etc.. 

Then the first one is born and for most people all those perfect ideals go out the window. 

I was one of the crazy people that went through the hard work of trying my very best To stick to my ideas. But even crazier is I managed to stick to those ideas for TWO kids!

They are perfectly healthy, didn't chuck tantrums (as I didn't allow them to), got rid of the dummy by only a few months old, slept perfectly in their cot or the pram, never got bribed with food, never had a baby's bottle after 12 months, slept in their own beds, didn't eat their first takeaway hot chip until they were a good couple of years old. As baby's and toddlers I couldn't have asked for better children, I put in all the hard work and reaped all the benefits. 

And then I got to child number 3. Miss Isla has been harder to work out than both my older two combined!! 

She's a fussy eater, and by fussy I don't mean with flavours I mean with texture. She's nearly 14months old and still wants to be spoon fed (Kaitlyn and Bradley were feeding themselves at this age). She sat up later, crawled later than the other two and I'm STILL waiting for her to start walking. 

She screams when tickled instead of laughing; in fact she screams a lot. It's a real high pitched, pierce your ear drums type scream and no matter what I do she doesn't care, she just screams whenever she wants. 

And weaning?! Remember how excited I was to breastfeed my baby for 12 months and never giving her a bottle?? 

Backfired.

While weaning (Isla started weaning all by herself so I allowed her) was happening Isla very happily drank cows milk from a sippy cup (hooray!) but the second I completely stopped breastfeeding her she refused ALL milk! 

I tried goats milk, cows milk, almond milk, soy milk. I tried it hot, cold, room temp. I tried water bottles, sippy cups and baby bottles. 

But she refused. 

I seriously considered putting her back on the boob but I was enjoying myself so much. I had successfully breastfed for 12 months and I didn't want to end up getting stuck with breastfeeding for months and months and months longer. I had achieved the 12 months I had always hoped for (3rd time lucky I managed it). Isla also needed to fatten up, and my breastmilk obviously wasn't fattening her up enough. 

So I grabbed a tin of toddler formula. 

And a baby's bottle. 

'Why am I doing this? I don't believe in kids past 12 months having baby bottles' 

One of my main reasons; Isla is too little. Even for her petite height she still needs to gain about 1.2kgs to keep the Dr's happy. 

I couldn't afford to stop giving her milk altogether as little Isla has a fair bit of weight she needs to gain.

Formula is well known for making baby's gain weight. 

The only way this sweet little angel child of mine will take formula is in a baby bottle. 

So now I have a bottle, formula fed toddler. Something I swore I would never have. Although I still don't let her walk around the house with her bottle or take the bottle to bed with her. I control when she is allowed a bottle and put it away as soon as she's done with it. And what an odd bottle feeding child she is. It's clear she never had a bottle as a baby, she doesn't know how to hold it properly and only sucks on the tiniest tip at the end of the teat, it's funny! Poor kid! 

I don't know how Isla has managed to be my skinniest baby. Poor third child that she is, almost ALL my perfect ideals have gone out the window. 

She eats not only take away hot chips but she has been known to have a couple of chicken nuggets. She's eaten birthday cake. She gets bribed with food while we are out in public (waiting for big kids to play tennis, watching kids assembly at school, sitting in the pram while I'm at Physio, etc). Isla also refuses to sleep in the pram, even at 10pm at night and she's really tired she won't fall asleep in the pram. She hates crèche! Like screams for 1 hour straight and it takes me half an hour to calm her down when I get home (I no longer go to exercises classes because of that now). 

It's not all bad though. Isla slept through the night quicker than the other 2, she eats spicy food better than the other 2, she cuddles more often than the other 2 and she's just super cute-just like the other 2 :-) 

I was extremely lucky to have lasted through baby and toddler years with my first two children and managing to keep all my perfect ideals about parenting. 

A combination of the bigger age gap, hubby working longer hours, Isla being slightly more stubborn than the older 2 and my own pure laziness and my perfect ideals are slowly wearing off. . . 

Clothes Shopping...Pilbara Style

Today I went clothes shopping Pilbara style! 

If there's one thing I've learnt from living 6 hours from your nearest shopping centre it's to always be prepared! 

We don't have the luxury of popping into Kmart every time there's a birthday party, or when the kids have a growth spurt or when the weather suddenly turns from weeks of freezing cold to 30degree days. 

So I keep a lot of stuff stored in our house. 

We have a birthday box full of presents, cards and wrapping paper (because Kmart sell cards and wrapping paper cheaper than up here) and every time the kids are invited to a party we go 'shopping' in that box. 

Today it was a beautiful 28 degrees here. It's been getting warmer over the last week or so. Our 'winter' is over and it's warming up. 

While the kids were at school I went through their wardrobes to see what summer clothes they had and what they might need. 

As usual they have plenty of tops and undies and Pajamas and bathers etc. but they both need new shorts! Almost every single pair of their shorts has a red dirt bum-if I scrubbed them any harder to get the stains out they would have no shorts at all. 

So off to the cupboard I went to see what clothes I had stored away for them. 

I buy clothes at the end of each season when they are on clearance, I buy the next size up and store them until the kids grow into them. 

I had a few pairs of shorts for Kaitlyn and nice new tops for them both. 

The shorts went straight into Kaitlyns drawers but the tshirts can wait a couple more months until they are needed. 

I also had a swimming rashie for Bradley that I scored for $4 on clearance!! 

Unfortunately for miss Isla all the summer clothes I have for her are size 1 a mix between things I've brought, things handed down and things we've been given. Due to the fact that my 13 month old weighs as much as some 6month olds she doesn't fit the size 1's yet so she will need a few size 0 summer things. 

Another couple weeks and I'll be in shopping heaven-sort of. 

We are making the trip west for a big rodeo weekend and while there we will drive the extra 2 hours into their nearest town to do a few hours shopping. 

Yes, yes I know I could do all my shopping my online. And sometimes I do. 

But I find online shopping leads to lots of impulse buying. I prefer to wait a couple months until I have a big list of things and do a big shop (to save me postage on 10 small packages I pay postage on one larger parcel which is cheaper). And if I know I have a trip to a town coming up I'll save up my shopping for 3-4 months! 

Kaitlyn and Bradley loved going 'clothes shopping' today and trying on their new clothes. They love 'shopping' from our birthday box for kids parties. 

It's a bit of fun and actually saves me a lot of money by always being prepared :-) 

The Long Hard Week(s)

It's been 2 weeks since Isla had her 12 month vaccinations. 2 very long, very hard weeks... 

Before I continue I just want to make it very clear that I am pro vaccination. 

I will never understand anti-vax people. There is a way to protect your kids from some of the most horrible illnesses out there and you choose not to protect your child. It just doesn't make sense to me! 

Of course I'm not speaking about the people that can't be vaccinated for medical reasons..obviously that's different. 

Anyway on with my story. 

2 weeks ago we took Isla in for her 12 month needles. The measles, mumps, rubella vaccine.

As usual the child health nurse went through all the side effects and reactions and risks as they do with every single person, every single time. 

5-12 days later the baby can get a rash all over, cold and flu like symptoms, a high fever of about 39 degrees for 3-4 days, loss of appetite and just generally unsettled. 

Isla didn't wait for the 5-12 days. She's been unsettled since day 1. And not just a little bit irritable and whingy I'm talking full blown stuck to me at all times, screams when I put her down, cries continuously, refuses to play with toys, just plain grumpy, won't let anyone else (including Kaitlyn and Bradley) touch her, if someone even LOOKS at her the wrong way she cries. 

Day 9, while we were at the Nameless Festival, she broke out in the rash all over. And I mean all over. Kaitlyn kept asking me why Isla looked so weird, I actually put the cover over her in the pram at one stage so people passing by wouldn't see how spotty she looked!

She was perfectly fine to be out of the house, the rash isn't contagious or anything but it did look bad and people were giving me the 'you're a bad mum for taking your sick kid out in public' look. 

It's now day 14 and the rash has almost completely cleared up. 

I wish I could say the same for the irritability. 

But she's still going. Screaming, crying, irritable, grumpy-she's one feisty little bugger at the moment. And of course for the last week hubby has been away so it's made it all the worse to deal with as I don't get a break. 

I'm suffering some major mummy guilt too because I have almost no time for the older two. Poor Kaitlyn and Bradley are being a bit neglected at the moment. They are being absolutely amazing though. Yesterday Kaitlyn sat down and did some homework by herself at the table while I was dealing with yet another screaming episode. 

It's been so hard on them. They come home from school in the afternoon and by the time they've finished their after school snack they are sick of being around Isla and they bail outside, coming in only for drinks, toilet breaks and dinner time. 

I don't blame them, I would escape too if I could. 

Dinner has been almost non existent, living off sausages, baked beans and pre cooked chickens with whatever salad or veg we have lying around. 

When I've finally had enough and I put Isla down for a nap all I want to do is collapse into a corner a cry. But I can't, I have 2 kids that really need some mummy time. 

I just have no energy, or patience to be honest because that baby is getting on my last nerve, to do anything much so we've been sitting on the couch reading stories or cooking dinner together to try squeeze in some bonding time. 

We saw a Dr the other day, for an unrelated issue, and I had a quick word with him. It's all just part of the side effects of the vaccine, some kids (like Kaitlyn and Bradley) are fine and have little to no effects, and some kids see it all. Thankfully we've escaped the cold and flu and fever symptoms. Although he didn't give me a time frame as to how much longer it would last, he just gave me a sympathetic look. He tried to feel Isla's tummy but laying her on the bed and having him stand near her was enough to set her off on a massive screaming episode. He totally felt my pain, the look on his face said it all. 

My ONLY saving grace at the moment is that Isla is still sleeping. In fact she's sleeping more than usual. 

Then again if I spent 10hours a day screaming and chucking baby tantrums I would be extra tired too. 

It's Me Time Now

I'm done. 

We have finished. 

Weaning is over. 

Isla hasn't had a breastfeed in 5 days. 

Success! 

I've never weaned a 100% breastfed baby before so it was harder than I imagined. I guess being sick and hiding in my room for 3 days helped because hubby took over and she couldn't get near me, and now she's got me back she knows the milks all gone. 

I'm happy that it didn't take too long, we had some setbacks and some bad days but it wasn't dragged out over 3 long painful months or anything like that. 

Today I got to dig out a pile of clothes I haven't worn in ages. 

For the last 12 months I've brought tops based purely on whether or not I can get my boobs out of them-hubby has been very encouraging of this way of shopping ;-) 

Today I'm wearing a bra with an actual underwire (hooray for uncomfy but much nicer bras again) a top with a high neckline and no maternity singlet, bra's, pants, NOTHING maternity! 

Wow I feel like my own person again! 

Ever since Isla was born I've just been so amazed at being able to feed her successfully (third time lucky right). I've enjoyed the ease of feeding her. I've enjoyed having a newborn around again and going through the baby stages. 

But now I'm enjoying feeling like me again. 

Over the last few years I've been pregnant 3 times, breastfed, been on and off steroids a few times and with all these things come the body changes, weight gain, weight loss, clothes are too big, too small, need new bras, maternity clothes etc etc. 

At the moment I'm not on steroids and haven't been for months, my arthritis in my hip feels the best it ever has, I'm not pregnant or planning on ever being pregnant again and now I've just finished breastfeeding I feel like I've got my body back. 

I've been exercising and enjoying having my body to myself. 

I've been losing weight slowly and once again going through the 'I have no clothes to wear stage' 

But let me tell you I'm soooo done with having to change my entire wardrobe every few months. I have boxes that literally say 'Emma's skinny clothes' 'Emma's maternity clothes' 'Emma's fat clothes' and depending on which stage I'm in those are the clothes I wear. I want so badly to just have ONE wardrobe, to be able to wear whatever clothes I want because I know they all fit me! 

I've enjoyed every single one of my 391 days breastfeeding Isla and I've enjoyed having all 3 babies and i don't mind the changes they have made to my body. The arthritis and steroids I could do without and now that everything is getting back to normal I'm ready to work my ass off so I never have to take them again. 

I'm also a little bit sad that Isla is growing up, Wednesday I breastfed my last baby for the last time. I was too sick to fully take in the moment but over the last month I've tried to truly treasure every single moment of feeding her. My goal since being a mum was to feed my baby's until they were 1, and now I've accomplished it. I'm done. Success at last. 

Now it's time to get fit and enjoy having my own body back again. 

Such a bittersweet moment. . .