Breastfeeding and hunger

I find that breastfeeding makes me really hungry.  I remind myself of my chooks clucking around the backyard.  The hens that are laying actively forage for food and go nuts every time they see someone come out of the backdoor, convinced that they are carrying scraps just for them.  They are perpetually hungry, seeking out the choicest bits and squabbling over them with determination.

Just like those chooks I feel I am always a little bit hungry and always up for a bit of tucker if it's on offer.  At dinner time I seem to eat enormous amounts and as main cook I am probably reserving the choicest bits for myself. I'm sure this is nature's way of ensuring that I definitely don't run the risk of losing weight while I am breastfeeding (and believe me I am not) but more importantly, ensuring that I maintain sufficient energy to support my baby's breast milk needs.

When Ellie was three weeks old I travelled to Canberra by plane to visit family.  My siblings seemed very keen for my mum to meet Ellie as she had recently become bedridden and her prognosis was uncertain.  While I was pregnant, with about 4 weeks to go, mum caught a urinary tract infection.  It was discovered after she had been found a couple of times collapsed on the floor.  The infection caused her to be put to bed and treated with antibiotics.  In the time that she was convalescing she lost her ability to walk.  In her dementia state she still believed that she was able to walk, but she just seemed to have lost the ability to understand the process of steps involved in walking.  This was obviously a great shock to the family and there was a real fear that her downward progression  may continue.

 

Leaving my husband and older children at home I left for Canberra wearing my 3 week old in a sling. There were a few hiccoughs to begin with. Ellie poohed through all of her clothing before we even got our of the airport car park in Coffs.  So first stop was the baby change room in the terminal.  The second difficulty occurred as Ellie and I were going through security before boarding the plane.  The staff insisted that I take her out of the sling.  I had other luggage too and a long line of waiting passengers behind me.  Ellie was asleep and I struggled to try and get her out of the sling and to get the sling off.  The staff were not allowed to help by holding her.  Luckily, a mate of Steve's happened to be passing through the gate at around the same time and he pushed forward to the front and offered his assistance.  He held the baby, much to the acute jealousy of the other females standing around, and I was then able to disentangle myself from the sling and pass it through the metal detector.

The rest of the trip worked out pretty smoothly with a transfer at Sydney, this time I was pre-warned about ensuring Ellie was not in her sling when I reached security.  The connections involved short waits where I was able to pick up a snack.  The flights provided snacks too, but never enough for a hungry breastfeeding mum.  It felt like I needed two meals to everybody's one.

I hired a car in Canberra and stayed with my brother Murray and his wife, Sharon.  It was lovely to be able to care for Ellie and have them look after me by cooking meals for me.  Both Murray and Sharon are really good cooks and the meals were delicious.  I definitely scraped my plate clean every time.  By a few days into my visit, however, I noticed that my milk supply had radically dropped.  Ellie was suckling constantly and seemed unable to be satisfied.  My breasts felt really soft.  I quickly realised that a few days of consuming not enough calories and of running around visiting people had taken its toll on my reserves.  Here I was still recovering from birth, being much more physically active than a mum of three week old should be and although eating a good diet, it was only enough for one adult, not one breastfeeding mum with a baby totally dependant on her for all her calorific needs.

The solution to this problem was to immediately cease all social interaction, and go to bed with my baby.  I literally just ate and slept and fed for a full 24 hours.  It did the trick and my supply jumped back up again.

I have noticed that at various times during the past nine months I have had days where I feel almost constantly hungry. Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner are barely enough.  Just in the past week I directly correlated my sudden increased need for food with a period of night waking that Ellie had gone through a few days earlier.  For two or three nights she seemed to be waking hourly for drinks. Most nights I am aware that she'll have one or two suckles, but I am barely awake enough to notice.  But for these few nights, she was waking repeatedly and suckling for extended periods of time. It was exhausting and I was wondering what was going on.

What was going on was that for whatever reason, growth spurt or increased activity levels, thus increased calorie needs, Ellie was lifting my supply to meet her new needs.  I just happened be a few days behind her.  Now her needs have settled, either her need for increased calories has passed , or my supply has lifted to meet her new needs, and I now find myself incredibly hungry.  The extra milk that I need to make to meet Ellie's needs is made out of the food I consume.  So Ellie needs more of my milk, I need more food. That has left me back foraging in the cupboards between meals wondering what to eat and feeling like a mother hen scratching around for scraps and leftovers.

Betting on the Melbourne Cup

The Melbourne Cup horse race is touted as 'the race that stops the nation'.  If anyone is ever likely to have a flutter on the races, it will be at the 7th race of the Melbourne Cup.

There are 10 races across the day and each one has a lot of runners, so the odds of picking a winner aren't great compared to other horse racing carnivals.  The main race of the day has 24 runners! It's a long race so traditionally it is really hard to pick the winner.  Sometimes the favourite wins, but not often.

Office Sweeps are a tradition for the main race. Steve rang this morning to ask the kids if they wanted him to buy them some tickets in the office sweep stakes. Silly question really, asking them if they would like the chance to maybe win some free money, of course they'd say yes.
It was funny, though, Harry answered the phone and really couldn't quite get what Steve was saying.  He kept glancing toward our home office and repeating back to Steve with a confused look on his face "sweets in the office?"  I think he thought he was being offered a big bag of lollies that were somewhere in our office.  he may actually have preferred that to winning on the sweep stakes.

I joined up with the TAB on Friday with the thought that seeing as I am home with Ellie all day I may as well watch all the races and bet on them just for a bit of fun.  But betting is much more fun in a group, because then like the football tipping contests, you not only get the joy of winning, but you also get the joy of beating everyone else too......(or losing). So I figured that I'd print out all the races for the day and get the kids to pick their favourite horse for each race. Then I'd put $2 on each race for everyone, $1 on a win and $1 on a place, a bet each way.  If the whole family played, excluding Ellie, it would be $100 bucks for the day....imagine how much we might win.....

Then I thought a bit harder about the $100.  I'd be really happy if someone gave me $100, it's a decent amount of money. Imagine $100 bucks for me to go and buy whatever I like.  So why would I give $100 away just like that, with the real possibility of losing the lot?

Instead of me parting with my money to the TAB, I have set up the mummy tote here at home. At the moment it is only Ellie and I playing, the kids can join in when they get home if they like. At mummy tote we are betting 10c pieces.  We have an ice cream container full of lose change, so I am using the 10c pieces out of it.  Again, we are betting each way, 10c on a win and 10c on a place.  I will see who is ahead by the end of the day.

Ellie chose her horses by picking up bits of paper with the horse's number on it.  I wrote all the numbers on envelopes and 'rained' then down on her head.  Whichever one she picked up first was her choice, unless she picked up a handful of envelopes and then it was the last one left in her hand.
I chose my horses just by name, If I liked the name then that was the one that I picked. No science involved at all. This is a 100% gamble.

So how did we go?
Ellie won 160c, but having spent 200c she was 40c behind.  I won 450 cents. I spent 200 cents so was 250 cents ahead.  I guess picking horses by name works better than picking their numbers randomly.

Ellie at nine months

There is always so much debate as to which sibling Ellie most looks like.  I have decided to put together photos of each child at nine months and see who really does look most like who.

So who is who? 
Guess...
1.

 

2.

 3.

 

4. 

 

 



 

5.

 

Yes I tricked you and put up 5 pictures instead of 4. Did you get them all right?

 

1. was Sarah

2 and 3 were Ellie

4 was Evan and

5 was Harry.

 

Let's compare them a bit more closely.  First Sarah and Ellie:

 

I think that Sarah has squintier eyes and a broader head than Ellie.

 

How about Evan and Ellie?

 

A similar amount of hair, and both are very chubby. Evan's head looks broader too.

 

Okay, now let's compare Harry and Ellie

 

Harry has more hair than Ellie and his face looks a bit different.

 

So who does she most look like?  I think Evan, what do you think?



Jamboree 2010

We  had 2 of our children go to AJ2010, Sarah was 14 and Evan was 12.  Sarah was pretty laid back and confident about being away from home for almost 2 weeks. Evan being younger was a bit more nervous.  Evan called home regularly and tried to get Sarah to as well, but she was always far too busy.  As Jamboree headed toward its close, we started to think that Sarah did not miss us at all and she was far too busy having fun to be bothered contacting her parents, then we received this long missive from her. She had been busily writing it all through jamboree. It makes a great memento of the wonderful time that she had there. This is how it went......

1a
2/1/10
Dear Mum, Dad and Harry,
its only the first day here and already we're exhausted and have had some minor adventures. We all have our bags and stretchers safely back in our tents now, off ground in case water leaks in. After hardly sleeping a wink on those rock-hard bus seats and almost dieing (sic) from heat and hunger between breakfast and lunch as we slaved away at
1b
our tents, our stretchers are like heaven. Insects are definitely out in force, especailly (sic)  those tiny black ant (sic) who we had to firmly relocate from our tents, patrol boxes and kitchen gear. It was quite an itchy challenge taking everything out of the ant-hill/shipping container, which, I might add, needs a very good water proofing! The tents, too, are letting the edge of my
2a
stretcher become damp! And other troops, one not two sites away, have nylon dome tents! We have heavy leaky patrol tents that will easily let in another insect which is much more deadly than a black ant. I haven't seen one yet, but there are warning signs on the way into Cataract. Oh and I haven't told about the gateway. You'd have to be blind to miss it, 4 identical,
2b
massive concrete arches. I have a badge showing it. The weather has been balmy with random showers, and, just five minutes ago a thunder storm. Not much different from Coffs Harbour.
6/1/10
Its our fourth day here at cataract and the 2nd day of the official Jamboree. When we got here 4 days ago our campsite looked like a paddock with NSW camps
3a
dotted around. The, the next day, the spare spaces started to fill up and now we have to walk around on the paths between camps. On the 2nd we were allowed to walk around and the badge trading began.
As you walk along the main road between sub-camps you are asked which state your (sic) from by scouts wanting contingent badges. We've got our troop badge which is one of four from all the troops from North Coast NSW.
3b
All four, plus a region badge, join together to make a set. I have all the badges in that set.  I also have all the sub-camp badges, which make an octagon when put together, with Aquarius in the middle.  All the sub-camps are named after constellations. There is Andromeda, Gemini, Orion, Taurus, Aries, Leo, Pegasus, Aquarius and Scorpius. (sic)
Its really fun putting our troop pegs on peoples clothing without them noticing.
4a
We made these pegs yesterday and used them up yesterday. It says, "you have been bitten by the NC123 bat colony" and has a cute picture of a bat on the peg too. I am writing this on the bus to Jamberoo water park, where we will stay for the day. Last night was the opening ceremony. There was fireworks and a live band. Me and five friends from my troop got to a metre from the
4b
front row, where there was no room to move. Tonight's a rock night, though I don't think I'll have any voice left to scream with.
11/1/10
Jamberoo was great. The best ride was the Taipan. It was pitch black, in a raft, down 200m curving back and forth. Today is the 11th of January and more than halfway through Jamboree. I'm still tired and still having
5a
Fun. I miss you all loads!
The day after we went to Jamberoo we did adventurous activities. Our package included BMX, Challenge Valley and Laser Skirmish. BMX- I only went round the track 3 times but stacked twice. It was hard. Challenge Valley was run by venturers and was like a big commando course with mud and water in more than half the activities. By Laser Skirmish we were so tired, but it was fun.The day after that we had Endurance 2010. It lasted all day with 17 bases. We only had to do ten, we did 11. We skipped both the skirmishes in which you get died (sic) red with water. One of my favourites was rock climbing. There was also abseiling, mega board games, a maze & first aid.
We almost missed the bus out.
The day after, we did Brownsea Island. It re-enacted some of the activities @ the first scout camp. We did animal tracking, knotting nets & Law & Promise, and Pioneering. That afternoon we went 2 Cirque du Scout. That was awesome. We painted each others faces, practised 4 types of juggling & did trampolining.
Two days ago was market Day (Visitor Day) we had the day off to try and raise lunas (Jamboree Market Day Money). Vicki came and visited our camp. We were duty patrol that day. Our troop made an Emoo Steak stand and raised over 200 lunas.
Yesterday we went to water activities in Chowder Bay. There was canoeing, kiaking (sic), swimming, snorkelling, a ferry ride and a scenic walk. Candle was at the snorkelling base. The ferry ride was fun because we could go right on top and see all round Sydney Harbour.  Today we had another lot of adventurous activities. We had Waterslides, giant swing and high Ropes. The waterslide was just like the ones @ the Big Banana and the giant swing was awesome! I was pretty good @ high ropes though it was scary.
5b
Hope u are all well
Lots of Love,
Sarah



.......What an amazing letter that gave us so much detail about what she did at Jamboree. Three years later, at the beginning of this year, Evan got to Go to his second Jamboree, AJ2013.  From being one of the youngest last time, this time he was one of the oldest.  Gone was the nervous boy.  How many phone calls did we receive from him this time?
None.
How many letters home?
None

Not a single word, even though he knew he was going to have a baby brother or sister enter the world very soon, possibly even while he was away.
I am told it's a good sign if you don't hear from them, they are obviously having too great of a time.
From conversations with him when he got back, he did indeed have a ball, but with no written record I fear the details of his big adventure may become obscured by time.

Next it will be Harry's turn in 2016 to experience his first Jamboree, AJ2016.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfMKe-QwNNw

Tablet Freeze

I just had to do a complete factory reset on my Acer A500 tablet.  Now everything has been wiped, so I have lost everything that I had saved to the device. All my apps and the levels that I have achieved are gone. Everything like kindle and email all needs to be set up again, complete with password protection.

How did it come to this?

It was a perfectly normal day, we were heading down to Urunga for our sailing lesson, Steve was driving and I was playing Pet Rescue Saga.  We got to the river and I turned off the tablet and stowed it under the seat. I thought nothing more of it until a little later in the day when Ellie needed a feed.  I knew that she was due for a sleep and would likely nod off in my arms during the feed.  I mentally congratulated myself on having the fore thought to bring the tablet along as entertainment.

As Ellie dropped off to sleep I carefully reached down and searched the under seat area with my finger tips.  Gently, so as to not wake my baby, I extracted the tablet and switched it on. But it wouldn't switch on. Weird, I was sure that I hadn't shut it down completely when I last switched it off.  I turned it off and then back on again. It started to boot, giving me the Acer name and then android, and that's where it stopped. I waited and waited and it couldn't pass that point.  I tried a few more times to switch it off and back on again.  It was the same thing each time.

I wasn't too worried, the tablet has frozen on me in the past and I have simply hit the reset button with a needle.  It was a tad disappointing as I had just lost my entertainment for the time I was sitting with a sleeping baby in my lap.  Quietly, so as to not wake her I searched the various cavities of the car looking for something I could use to push the reset button.  I tried a variety of pens, but they were just a little too thick to make it into the hole.  Just as I gave up finding anything, Steve told me about a needle in the glove box.  I got it out and used it to push the button.  It had the same effect as the on off button, still when it booted it got stuck at the android screen.  I tried a couple more times and turned in off and on again  a few more times too. No luck.

Still feeling optimistic I decided that the needle at home that I normally use to reset the tablet would do the trick.  I put the tablet away and left the problem for when I got home.

Once home I immediately tried the reset button. No good. Next I decided to give it a full charge and then try.  Still no good. Now I had to face the fact that my tablet, in all likelihood was buggered. So what is the next logical step?

Yep, you guessed it, visit Dr Google.

I Googled the problem as a question and immediately enough forum posts came up in the search results to show me that this a very common problem.  Acer has itself some very unhappy customers out there.  This was not filling me with confidence at all.  Many of the answers involved downloading things that made absolutely no sense to me onto a memory card. I was starting to think I was either going to have to ditch the tablet or send it back to Acer for a very expensive fix.

After reading a few posts I started to understand one thing that was making a reappearance.  That was about how you could turn the power button on at the same time as holding down the volume up button and then toggle the rotation lock button a few times.  this would reset the tablet to its factory settings.  Unfortunately, most had tried it in vain, even the guy in this you tube video.

At least by watching the video I was able to see exactly how it was done.  I am definitely a visual person.  Not expecting too much in the way of results, I followed the instructions in the video.  The first and second times it didn't seem to work.  I continued to peruse the forums and was about to try the factory reset method one last time, when the screen suddenly changed on me and went to the set language.  Yay, it worked.

Now I just need to get on and set everything back up the way I had it before...........

Robotic vacuum cleaner

If you are wondering what to buy your partner for Christmas I can seriously recommend a robotic vacuum cleaner.  They are great and save you so much time.

 

 

 

Just before Fathers' Day this year my husband suggested that we get a robotic vacuum cleaner to keep our new floating floor dust free.  It is amazing how much dust shows up every day when you convert your floors from carpet to hard.  All that dust that you had never noticed before on a carpeted floor sits on a smooth hard floor catching the light and flaunting itself.  It really does require a daily clean. Who has time to vacuum every day?  I certainly don't, once a week is about as good as it gets, and maybe on a really good week, I'd get around to it twice. So basically, the floor spends most of its time dirty, with a very brief moment in time when it actually looks any good.

 

As head vacuum cleaner operator in our household, I jumped on my husband's suggestion of a robotic vacuum cleaner.  I knew that they were a little expensive, so the chances of him buying me one were pretty remote.  As he pretty much had all his vacuuming done free of charge and by someone else, there would be little motivation for him to fork out too much money in that department. Also, being close, but not quite a power tool, he would deem it of little value.  The same amount of money spent on a power tool that lives in the depths of his shed and being lucky to see the light of day twice a year is a justifiable expense.  I do recall him even telling me something along the lines of a power tool is a good investment, hence worth the expense.

 

 

Well after using our new robotic vacuum cleaner for 2 months, I can tell you it is definitely worth the expense.  This is no fad purchase that sits in a dark dusty corner silently reminding you of a foolhardy purchase.  I use it everyday, just push the button and off it goes. It sets off on a seemly random zig-zaggy path around the rooms, cleaning away relatively quietly.  I was worried at first that it would be horribly noisy, but it isn't.  It hums away merrily doing its thing, while leaving you to do your thing.

 

If you were paying someone by the hour to vacuum your house you'd definitely sack this little robotic machine.  It takes a while to potter around, and seems to miss bits, but will eventually make its way back to clean them up.  Although they are entertaining to watch, at first, you do find yourself pointing out bits it has missed.  It happily ignores you and gets on with the job, trundling up over humps in the carpet and managing small lips between rooms with surprising ease.  It works best on hard floors, though seems to suck an amazing amount of dust out of the carpeted areas too.  It struggles to get the lint on my rugs, but then I struggle to clean them with a conventional vacuum cleaner too.

 

The bit I like the most is its ability to go underneath the furniture and into those places that rarely get a thorough clean.  Now those areas are getting a daily clean, so those hidden dust harbouring nooks and crannies have had their day.  It can't get right into the corner, but comes pretty close. So it is necessary to go over the house once in a while with your conventional vacuum cleaner, so don't throw it away yet. I guess I'll get around to getting it out again, but find time is the hard part.  Today while my little robot was inside doing its thing I was outside enjoying the sunny spring weather and doing some gardening.  Meanwhile, I could hear my neighbour labouring away with his ordinary vacuum cleaner inside his house.  I know where I preferred to be.

 

 

Just like now, you wouldn't question your need to buy a washing machine as it beats hand washing by a country mile, so does having a robotic vacuum cleaner beat vacuuming by hand.  Sure there are a few small bits where doing it by hand gives a better result, but the overall time saver of having a machine do the bulk of the work for you is well worth the investment.  It's the next in our line of modern conveniences must haves that frees us up to enjoy other non cleaning aspects of our life.  Buy your partner a robotic vacuum cleaner for Christmas, you'll both be so glad that you did.

Internet Switch

I want something like this centrally located in my house so that I can, with great bravado, threaten the kids that I am going to switch off the internet.  This is my fantasy, that when I say "dinner is ready and it's time to get off the computer/laptop/other device, I mean now!  Don't make me have to use the switch."

I'd have the modem wired through it and then have it located in a nice visible area where I can make a big show of going over to the switch. Then I could put my hand on it and threaten, "I'm gonna do it".
I could then drag out the action of wrenching the switch from the on to the off position.

I would also like to imagine, the sounds of whirring industry slowly winding down, as all the devices and computers grind to a halt.  Silence would descend for a split second before the indignant voices of protest rise up to complain about the unfairness of it all.  I could stand there smugly saying "I warned you".

Ahhh to be never ignored again when I tell the kids to come to dinner, go to bed, have a shower..... or whatever other requests I may make of them that would require them to physically extract themselves from the magnetic pull of their chosen technology.

Someone should market this idea and give me a chance to live out my dream.  Imagine a ceremonial shutting down of the wifi at bedtime, it would give me such pleasure.  I know I can achieve the same ends with the itty bitty button on the back of the modem, but somehow it lacks the drama and theatre that the big wall mounted switch would have.