Thankful Thursday: The Dusty Blog Edition

Dear Internets, it's not you. It's me.

I've lost interest in the Twitter, and Facebook seems to never refresh fast enough for me. I deleted Twitter off my phone a month or so back, and I haven't missed it. I find it's a medium that requires you to be in constant contact, or none of it makes sense.

What have I been doing instead?

Cuddles. More cuddles. Building blocks. Sewing. Cleaning the house. Oddly enough, quite enjoying cleaning the house. Teaching Millie how to use the kitchen. Watching Pippa roll over for the first time. Listening to Pippa's baby chats. Teaching Millie how to say 'Love'. ('Lub') Hanging with Mr S.

The first year of a baby's life is hard for the parents. I've said this before. It's a year of feeding feeding feeding, sleep deprivation, a lot of infant bodily functions with tiny glimmers of awesomeness. This time, I know this, so I enjoy the awesome (baby cuddles and chats) and attempt to ride through the yucky (Pippa's colicky refluxy screaming for an hour at a time).

I've had my brush with Baby Blues this time, and once I stopped the Mini Pill I slowly returned to normal. There were four weeks where I just couldn't stop crying. It was awful. I must say that thankfully there was no "pane of glass" between me and my babies, I just couldn't stop crying, then I'd cry more because it was so ridiculous.

So, to the Dr that refused to prescribe meds and told me ride it out another week, thank you. I spent a long time weaning off meds years ago, and I don't want to do that again.

I've been SEWING again. I say it with caps, because it makes me so happy. Sorry, SO HAPPY. Millie pulls a chair up to the ironing board (at the non-burny end) and chats to me while I'm sewing. This week she chose two kinds of fabric for 'Millie's Bag, Mum?'. I can't refuse that - and she was SO happy.

I'm thankful for Lady Pippa who is really quite a laid back kind of gal, she fell asleep in her bouncer today whilst we moved all the furniture around for a pest spray, and then slept right through it. Bless. Her eyes? Oh my goodness. I could look at them forever.

No pics here today, you'll have to use your best imagination photos. Why no pics? I've been busy, Internets. Busy cuddling my babies.

Can you hear it?

Can you hear it? The sound of (relative) silence. I can hear traffic whizzing by, my hard drives humming, the fish tank burbling. Like I said, silence.

Why silence?

BOTH OF MY CHILDREN ARE ASLEEP. AT THE SAME TIME.

I dare not breathe too loudly, start any projects or boil the kettle lest one of them wake up.

That is all.

FFS Friday - Shiny Things Friday

• My blog-jo is missing. Have you seen it? FFS.
• As Mr S and I wish to not add to our brood for a little while, I began to take the Mini-Pill. It made me feel more-than-slightly unhinged. FFS.
• After four weeks of taking said Mini-Pill I realised I'd been in a bad sad mood for four weeks. Cue Doctor visit. Cue no more Mini-Pill. The thing is, I'm still waiting to feel better. FFS.
• This morning I've been followed around by a meowing, scratching random things Lucy-cat. FFS.
• I did a lot of clothes washing this morning and it's pouring with rain now. FFS.
• Pippa gets awful colic at the same time every day. A friend mentioned to Andrew that her kids were the same, she cut out all dairy and it made a real difference. This week, Oat Milk, Nuttelex, Sweet William Chocolate and Not-Tim-Tams entered my world. FFS.
• Oat milk, Nuttelex and Not-Tim-Tams are fine. Sweet William Chocolate is not. FFS.
• I REALLY like butter. FFS.
• I'm hoping that the dairy-free business will help with my Operation Skinny Jeans. Last week I lost 2 kilos.
• I am having a Big Birthday in a few weeks. Help. FFS. Despite this, my hairdresser has confirmed that there are no grey hairs on my head. Win.

Shiny Things Friday

Oh my god, my kids are lovely. Pippa loves to snuggle and Millie loves to cuddle. I could not love these two any more.

Taking photos of a toddler means they're mostly blurry.
But look at her!

Lady Pippa wearing a new dress and loving it!

Covered in kids. Love it.

My kitchen helper. She wipes the bench and everything!

I was in the other room and heard Millie chatting. I came in to
hear "Bowl. HAT! Bowl. HAT!"

Pippa was sent some bibs by Ros at Sew Delicious.
She couldn't decide which one to wear, it was too exhausting.

Linking up with Sarah at Dear Baby G.

#operationmove - a check in

I'm pretty pleased with myself. For the last 11 days I've completed my recovery stretches twice per day, with the exception of Sunday. On Saturday night Mr S was away, Pipster woke me at 4, we dozed until 5, and at 5.30am she chucked all through my bed. GOOD MORNING! So, on Sunday I struggled with 4 hours sleep.

I've found that I no longer wobble on the spot when I'm standing still, my abdominal muscles feel much stronger and I have got hamstring strength. All this in 11 days? I'm impressed. When I put some new batteries in our scales on Tuesday and realised that I've lost 15kg since Pip was born, I was happy. I'm going to continue with the stretches and start doing some cardio next week as well.

Whilst my core and legs feel stronger, I've developed a nasty pain in my back. I'm pretty sure that it's because my core is no longer taking the brunt of my weight anymore, and my back is pretty weak. I found my TENS machine in the cupboard (thankyou Freecycle!) and I intend to give it a whirl on my back. Family Smyth are also heading to the pool this afternoon, and if I can find my goggles I'll be doing a few laps. I'm also contemplating a double pram for walks out and about. At the moment Millie sits in the pram and Pip hangs out in the Ergo, and my back complains. Lady Pippa is not a small baby...

Last week I pulled out my pre-pregnancy clothes and it was not the shopping extravaganza I had hoped for. I'll be rocking my maternity jeans for a few weeks more.

SIDEBAR: I'm sad when I have to put my maternity jeans away and go back to Real People clothes. WHO invented the button and zip? Truly? Elastic waisted jeans are, quite frankly, the bomb diggity bom bom. Fashionable? Well...

I hope to record a loss on the scales next week, however as long as I'm feeling stronger, that's the important thing right now. If I were deathly serious about the kilograms I'd be eating far less chocolate, Oreos, hot chocolates, coffees and biscuits. *wink*

That's right, I give myself Gold Stars.

That's right, I give myself Gold Stars, and other colours too.

Ok, so I had a break. I didn't really mean to, however I got the biggest case of writer's block and started enjoying cleaning my house instead. I know.

Buuuut I'm missing writing. I started writing some lyrics down again the other day as well, and that's a huge thing for me. I haven't written a song for almost three years.

I've seen so many breakdowns of 2012, and it was a huge year here in Haus of Smyths. We renovated and we had another baby. Only two major things really, but by golly were they life changing and life affirming.

There's no more talk of adding to our brood for at least another couple of years now, so now, it's time to smash some goals.

First up is my Moving goal. The awesome Kate from Kate Says Stuff and Sarah from Dear Baby G have been inspiring me with their fitness and health posts lately.

Kate's been writing about Operation Move since September, and now, I'm in. I've never been an awesome exerciser, so I'm setting my goals small to begin with. I'm doing my recovery strength exercises 20 min/day and playing 'STOP! GO! RUN!' with Millie as often as possible. My back is quite painful at present from contorting myself whilst feeding Lady Pippa and carrying around an almost 6kg baby daily, so I'm hoping that gaining some core strength back will be helpful here.

I stepped on the scales today and so far I've lost 15kg since Pippa was born. By my calculations there's 8kg to go until I'm at Pre-Pippa Weight, 13kg to Pre-Millie Weight and 17kg to Skinny Waisted Jeans Weight. I'm aiming for somewhere between Pre-Millie and Skinny Waisted Jeans weight by the end of the year. I'm taking a stab in the dark and saying that breastfeeding a giantess of a baby is going to be remarkably helpful.

Sarah's been following 12WBT and absolutely SMASHING it. And she now looks even more SMASHING. I love the idea of 12WBT but I'm not willing to stop eating ten tonnes of sugar and fourteen blocks of chocolate just yet...

So that's one of my goals for this year. I've put reminders in my phone for my strength exercises, and I subscribe to the Jerry Seinfeld 'Don't Break The Chain' productivity theory. That's right, I give myself coloured stars on the calendar praising myself for doing my exercises. Here and now, I've just made myself accountable. Here we go!