The couple across the road from me lost their little baby girl last week.  I don’t really know the couple, and had been meaning to go over and introduce myself since I moved into this house in May thisyear – I had just never gotten around to it.  I went over to introduce myself on Thursday, and I started off with “Congratulations to the birth of your new baby”  (they’d had a little girl approx’ 1 month earlier), and they burst out in tears.  I didn’t know that they had lost their little bub only a few days earlier   I felt like the world’s biggest twat!

Friends of theirs came over on Friday to ask me if I’d like to go to the service, but I declined.  I didn’t want to show up with Isabella, who is only a few months older than their precious daughter was, and it’s not really the type of thing you go to with a 2.5 year old either.  Also the fact that I would have felt a little out of place.

I have been on the verge of tears since learning of what happened.  I can’t stop thinking about the pain they are going through right now.  It’s just one of those things you cannot comprehend.

I lost my little girl at 19 weeks gestation, so I know the pain of losing such a precious and innocent life.  I was lucky enough to have a week to say goodbye to my beautiful girl, as I was told at th 18 week scan that there was a high risk we’d lose her soon.  Unfortunately baby M passed away of SIDS during her sleep, so her parents never had that luxury of saying goodbye.  They didn’t even know that there would be reason for saying goodbye.  The death of this little baby has surfaced emotions I haven’t felt since losing baby Rhiannon, and I’m really finding it hard to get past it.  Silly, I know, as until 4 days ago, I didn’t even know these people’s names, and now I am thinking of them almost 24/7. 

I just wish there was something I could do to make their pain go away.  It’s just so gutwrenchingly sad .

I am thinking of asking them for a photo of baby M, so that I can fix it up and get it printed & mounted for them, but I don’t know how I would go about asking almost strangers for a photo of their little angel without it looking a little weird.

I apologise for the deep & gloomy post, but I hope that it will make everyone who reads it hold their children extra tight and never take them for granted, for you never know what could happen in one fleeting moment.

Jodes XOXOX

It’s not like I’ve been busy.  Well, I have, but if you were to ask me what I have been doing, the answer would probably be “nothing much”.  Having 3 young girls to look after certainly keeps me on my toes, but life outside these 4 walls is pretty much non-existant.  I’m not complaining though.  The fun that goes on within these 4 walls is enough to keep me going.  Seriously, having all girls is totally awesome (please remind me of this when the girls reach their teenage years, lol).  I love only having to buy pretty girly things, I love pink, and I love my girls to the moon and back. 

I did manage to get us all out of the house and up to Melbourne for a few days this week, which was refreshing.  Mum & Dave returned from their 3 month holiday and came to see us last Thursday, then they took Hails home with them the following day.  I drove up with Brooklyn & Isabella on Monday. 

We met up with some of the Melb EB photography & Flickr girls at Montsalvat, Eltham on Tuesday, and we all had such a wonderful time!  There were quite a few of us (I didn’t count) which made for an interesting day.  The buildings at Montsalvat are extraordinarily beautiful!  It was like stepping back in time, somewhere in France, with the old churches, pool, ponds and gorgeous flora.  There was some gorgeous lilac coloured wisteria near the pool area which I wanted to photograph, but never got the chance to, as Brooke was too busy trying to climb onto the wall surrounding the pool, lol.  I will definitely go back there one day; probably over summer.

Also, while we were up that way, we finally made it to the Ringwood Centro to see our photo on display for their Smile! competition.  We didn’t win the local comp, or the national prize, but I’m still happy enough to have been chosen as a finalist!

In other news (lol), tday was “D” day with trying to get Isabella into a better sleeping routine, and so far it has been a success!  Since she was born, she has had her daytime naps in the loungeroom in her bouncer, after being breastfed to sleep.  It was working a treat, but now that she’s older (and the kids are louder, lol), I thought maybe it was time to change our habits.  Brooklyn was always breastfed to sleep, and it took until she was almost 2 years old before she started sleeping through the night without a breastfeed – OMG!  I am NOT in a hurry to repeat that whole “breast/sleep” thing again!

I put Isabella down in her bassinette this morning after feeding her (she was still awake), turned some soothing music on, and left the room.  She cried out a few times, so I just went in and let her know I was still here before leaving again.  At one point she started fretting a little, so I gave the bassinette a little rock until she was dozey, then left the room.  She went to sleep on her own after that – even though it was only a 1/2 hour sleep (as opposed to her usual 45 mins), but it’s progress.

I did the same again tonight.  It took a little more persevearance (sp?), but I didn’t have to feed her to sleep, so I am stoked!  She has been asleep for a little over 2.5 hours now YAY!  I just hope we can BOTH continue this (I am such a sucker and usually give in too easily!).

Probabl boring you now, but I am just happy that it’s working out .

Okay….so it wasn’t an official thing – that I know of.  If it was, no-one told me, but it was sure evident on the roads today!

It started this morning on my usual school run.  I was running late (I slept through my phone alarm and slept in until 8:30…school starts at 9 *blush*).  I frantically got everyone ready…except myself, but it’s not totally unusual for me to take Hails to school in my pj’s covered by my long black jacket, lol).  We left the house at 8:50am, but didn’t arrive at school until 9:12am!  It *should* take 10-15 mins MAX.  I was stuck behind slow car after slow car and it was extremely frustrating!  Don’t get me wron, I am all for road safety and all that, but driving 15 k’s UNDER the speed limit (which was only 60 in most places anyway) is taking things a little TOO safe – especially when your DD is running late for school, and her teacher has no qualms with documenting the fact that your DD was late for school TWICE in one whole school year :-S!

The afternoon school run was worse.  Isabella has never been a big fan of being in the car – and who could blame her?!  I couldn’t stand facing the wrong way in a moving vehicle, only being able to see where we’ve been and not where we’re going!  Anyway…Isabella decided she’d had enough only 2 minutes into the trip and started screaming.  I know her well enough to know that no amount of pulling over and trying to soothe her is going to work, so I had to just grin and bare it until we got home – IF we could EVER get there!  One car in front of me thought it might be safer to drive at 40k’s in an 80 zone, and drive on the far right of the road, as if they were about to pull over – but they didn’t. 

On the other hand…my other traffic gripe for today was the SPEEDING trucks!  Hailey’s school is on a windy bit of country road, full of potholes and worn bits of road, which become extremely slippery in the smallest amount of rain.  I know this because I lost control of my own car late last year when I was 11 weeks pregnant, and with my almost 2 year old in the car with me.  Anyway, this road is used by many trucks – log trucks, cattle trucks, dairy – you name it.  If I had a dollar for every speeding truck I have seen on this road, I would have enough money to buy myself a small island off Hawaii.  Seriously.  The amount of times I have had to swerve slightly off MY side of the road to avoid being side-swiped by a truck rounding the corner is unbelievable!  They drive WAY too fast for this road.  I am actually surprised I haven’t yet seen a truck roll on this stretch of road!

I’ve been meaning to post in here, but for one reason or another I always seem to get sidetracked.  Besides, not a lot has been happening here anyway.

The girl that I was supposed to do the maternity shoot for last Friday went into labour the following Sunday and gave birth to her newest little girl “Arrabella”.  Congratulations Alicia!!  I am just relieved that the other girls managed to get some precious belly pics before the big day…it was a close call though!

I FINALLY managed to get the kids out of the house last Sunday, and we went to Old Gippstown.  We had an absolute ball there!  We were the only people there at the time, so we had free range of the place – great for taking photos without lots of people getting in the shots.  I have put the pics in my flickr stream.  We are definitely going back there, as there’s some more photos I want to get, lol.

Gosh – I wish I was a little more interesting, lol. 

I have my ex trying to cause a few hassles for me at the moment.  I seriously don’t know what I ever saw in that man!  Somehow he has this way of still getting to me even though we’re no longer together.  He still gets me stressed and anxious, and I don’t know how he does it!  UGH!

Anyway it’s 2am and I really should be in bed.  Miss Isabella has been very unsettled all night, so I might be in for a long one.

I will try to make future posts a little more interesting, lol

Goodnight XOXOX

On a good note though….”G” has Hailey and Brooke again tonight!  He had them last night, so that I could leave for Melbourne first thing this morning, and so that I wasn’t dragging 3 kids across the countryside with me.  He offered (OMG…he offered!!) to have them again tonight too!  I missed the flying pigs…but I’m sure they must be flying around somewhere!! LOL

These photos were taken on or around our property in Willow Grove, VIC.

The center photo is of the sun at around 8am.  The smoke was so thick and heavy, it was difficult to breath.  All of our washing – whether dried inside or out reeked of smoke, as did our curtains.

Driving proved difficult most days, due to the thickness of the smoke, and headlights were always a must!

I was 38 weeks pregnant at the time, and I will always remember the horrid heat (40+ degrees) and the smell of smoke!

A number of people died during these fires.  Homes were lost, animals died from either the smoke or as a direct result of the fire.

I have my first “shoot” on Friday.  A few of us from the EB Beginner’s Flickr group are heading to Melbourne to do a maternity shoot for a fellow EB’er.  I’m looking forward to it…. I finally get to photograph someone who didn’t come from my own belly, lol. 

I somehow managed to escape the house completely and utterly ALONE this afternoon!  OMG…as soon as I pulled out of the driveway, I did my own little happy dance, lol.  My ex (“G”) babysat while I went to get my hair cut and do a few other things that I have put off doing.  I was only gone 1.5 hours and when I walked in the door, the first thing I saw was G sitting on the couch, with Isabella asleep on his lap.  He looked kind of flustered.  The only thing he could manage to say was “Nevr, ever, EVER again!”.  He had it EASY!  Apparently bub cried for half an hour……Oh My Goodness……how on earth did he manage?  PFFFTTTTT!!!  Welcome to MY world!  At least HE didn’t have dinner to organise, baths, showers, bedtime, etc.  UGH!

Isabella actually screamed almost ALL night on Monday night.  She woke up at 11pm, I changed her nappy, fed her and got her all wrapped up in her wrap and cocoon, ready for bed.  She was fine…then out of nowhere, she started crying…it was such a high pitched cry too – one I have never heard from a baby before.  It was almost like a squeal.  I unwrapped her, burped her, changed her nappy again and attempted to offer her a comfort feed, but nothing was working.  The only way I could get her to settle, was to stand up with her over my shoulder, while bouncing her up & down and rubbing her back.  Everytime I layed her down, she would start screaming again.  This went on for 3 hours.  I was beginning to work out how I was going to manage sleeping while still standing.  In the end, we were both exhasuted, so I put her into bed with me (and Hails, who had earlier conned me into letting her sleep in my bed, lol).  After a little bit more crying and a bit of squirming, bub finally drifted off to sleep.  I’m not sure if it was reflux related or if it might have had something to do with the ginormous poo she did the next day…lol.  She was a little unsettled again around the same time last night too, but nothing too major!

I am not  yet bad enough to star on Oprah (anyone watch it yesterday?) and have a hoard of people come through my house and empty it of tonnes of “stuff” (although wouldn’t that be lovely!). 

I have boxes of “stuff” stored in my wardrobe and out in the shed, which I haven’t bothered sorting through since I moved.  It’s the kind of stuff that doesn’t ‘belong’.  You know…it doesn’t have its own little place, so it just stays in the boxes until I have a use for them…which I probably never will, yet I can’t bear to throw it out.  Stuff like papers.  I keep stuff for the sentimental value “Oh…that scribble on that scrap piece of paper…I remember when I drew that…I was on the phone to so & so, and that was the day after DD’s birthday….I’d better keep that”.  Yes…I really am that bad *blush*.

Tonight, I have been sorting out my hard drive *GULP*!  I have just gone through each and every folder, etc (in My Pictures) and deleted well over 600 images!  I had to…I was running out of room, lol.  You see, I also hoard photos.  I keep all those OOF (out of focus), blurred, dark, double/tripple chinned photos…well…I used to anyway!  My reasoning?  What if I delete that photo of “so & so”, and something happens to them?  I would be wishing I kept that photo.  Well…it’s gone.  They’re ALL gone!  I had to do it quickly though, lol.  I would select the photo/s which were no good and quickly hit delete before I could think it over.  I have also emptied the recycle bin – so they’re GONE!  (Unless I try to recover them, but I have no idea how to do that, so what’s done is done now!!!).  I was a ruthless bitch, lol.

I was even ruthless enough to clean out Lightroom (an Adobe program used to process RAW files).  I deleted my catalogues, as it was getting a bit messy in there, and this way I thought I could start again and keep it all fresh and clean, removing images as I went.  I think I stuffed up.  When I deleted them, it said they would only be deleted from Lightroom, NOT the disk (HDD), but now I can’t find them ANYWHERE!!  Hopefully someone can come to my rescue!  I have tried opening up the backup folders of my catalogues, but the images won’t load in LR!  Oh dear!  I will never delete another photo again……..

Didn’t make it to Old Gippstown on Sunday.  The weather crapped out on us, so we stayed home once again.  We’ll get there one of these days!

Brooke is starting to get better with her behaviour.  She played up in a BIG way Sunday night though!  She would NOT go to sleep, despite being awake all day.  Hails read her 3 stories, and yet Brooke was STILL crying out for more….then she wanted a drink, then she wanted her ‘other’ Elmo, etc.   I ended up yelling at her…something I very rarely do.  She cried herself to sleep that night, because I just couldn’t do it anymore.  She hasn’t given me trouble since though – not with bedtime anyway.  She called out twice tonight – onece for a drink (I will always give in to the first drink request, as I like to have a little something before I go to sleep also), and the other time was because she wanted the hallway light off.  Progress.  Today, she was in the beginning of a tantrum, so I told her that if she wanted to carry on, she can go to her bedroom or go to bed.  To my absolute SHOCK, she picked herself up and took herself to her bedroom until she’d calmed down!  She did this 3 times all up, over the course of the day.  I am SO happy that she is working WITH me, rather than against me now!  Thanks Chook!

Is anyone else sick of the Olympics yet?  I was ‘over’ them before they began!  Don’t get me wrong, I DO feel rather proud whenever we win a medal and do Australia proud, and the openening ceremony is always something worth watching….but I am really NOT a huge fan of sport.  I never liked playing sport as a child.  In fact, the old “I have my period” used to come in very handy come P.E. classes at school.  Actually, I think I started using that old chestnut before I even knew what a period was, LOL.