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Almost 6 months!

Ok, so I didn’t want this blog to be all about my baby and life as a SAHM, but that’s what I’m busy with all day, so, Oh well.

Sweets (aka Scratchums MacClaw aka Wriggle Bum Biggle Bum) is turning 6months next week. She continues to thrive and delight. She’s doing more *things* now, which is pretty neat. For example, 2 nights ago she started splashing in the bath! Slapping her hand down in the water. Last night she had her flannel and would slap that down into the water a few times and then suck water from it.

I’m amazed by her drive to survive, ie, how good she is at eating (and drinking). She is *loving* baby led weaning. One of our favourite foods (she likes to eat it and I like how it doesn’t make much mess) is a chinese green, Chinese broccoli or Kai-lan (in Thai, Pak Kha Nar). She gets given the steamed stems and just munches and sucks all the juices out of them. She gets some fibres etc too, but it’s mostly the liquid. She is very funny when she eats because she takes it very seriously and when she gets a bit of solid food in her mouth she goms at it with a very confused expression. Today I also let her spoon feed herself pumpkin soup. I simply loaded up the spoon and then handed it to her to shove in her mouth. Messy but also wonderful!

The soup is what Beau and I had for dinner yesterday, I just made it up with less salt than usual. While Sweets is weaning herself onto solids, Beau and I have been weaning ourselves off salt and it hasn’t been as hard as I thought. Mum was really surprised the other day when she had some roast veges at our house and I told her I hadn’t added salt, she hadn’t even realised. There was kumara, carrot and parsnip. You could really taste the flavours of each vege, so you didn’t need salt. Might not work so well with potato. I cut them up into stick shapes to make it easier for Sweets to manage.

In other milestones, Sweets cut her first tooth a few days ago and is a pro and rolling from her back on to her front. She can also roll front to back, but isn’t as good at it, or maybe she just likes being on her tummy more? Once she’s on her tummy she often pivots around grabbing at things she wants (pretty much anything in reach).

Sweets and I have been going to SPACE which is a programme run through Playcentre for parents (mostly Mums but we have one Dad in our group) with new babies. Each time we have a discussion topic (eg sleep, BLW, heuristic play etc), an activity (making a toy or artwork), afternoon tea and we finish with songs. Sweets *loves* the singing. She has favourite songs that are pretty much guaranteed to make her smile and wriggle. :) I don’t think anyone was surprised by her liking music and singing!

She has also developed set sleep patterns (fingers crossed that me writing about it doesn’t cause it to change). Going to bed between 7 and 8pm and getting up 6.30-7.30am with a morning and afternoon nap. Beau and I were rocking her to sleep each time, but it was beginning to take more and more time, esp as she has gotten more vocal. She would be lying in our arms, eyes shut, but vocalising away. We were getting in the habit of putting her down after a bunch of rocking (still wriggling and squawking), leaving the room for 5-10min and returning to take it up again. She wasn’t ever crying though. So we thought, if we leave her longer, maybe she’ll go to sleep on her own. Well, she does (60-70% of the time, sometimes life and activities intervene and she gets overtired and *needs* rocking)! It’s funny though, Sweets is not a hugely vocal baby, but when she’s settling to sleep you hear her babbling away enough for two babies!

Point of Fashion: Home clothes… I need a new pair of trackpants
Current Obsession: Shopping, sweet online shopping.

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First Cold, first food

Sweets (aka Dougal, bubba goose, and “Noo Noi khong khun Yai”/Granny’s little mouse) is now almost 5 months old and is still doing well. She is currently in the throws of her first cold (a jumped up sniffle, no fever or cough), but continues cheerfully with the aid of saline drops and karvol sprinkled cloths. We’ve been mostly housebound as I want her to recover asap so that we can continue to attend our various activities (playcentre, antenatal “coffee” group, plunket “coffee” group). She’d be fine if we went, but I don’t want the other mothers to blame me if their baby gets a cold. Should be less of an issue in a few more months when they’ve all come down with their first illnesses.

Sweets continues to get her nutritional requirements met via breastmilk, but she has recently become a bit of a pain at meal times, trying to swipe my food (cracker with pate is a baby no!) and getting upset that she can’t join in. She’s very good and sitting up (many seconds unsupported) and has been grabbing and gumming her toys like a fiend, so we decided to let her grab and gum food-type stuff. Her first was a bit of raw carrot that Beau and I grew ourselves! It survived her attentions unscathed although well covered in drool. I’m sure there will be another first food when Sweets actually swallows something!

In case you were wondering why we didn’t start with a puree. It’s because I’ve decided that we’ll predominantly be going the Baby-led Weaning route, which pretty much means the baby feeds themselves. I imagine there will be some Sweets feeding, if only because the whanau will want to have a go, but I’m leaving that until at least 6 months! Food for fun until they’re one! Etc ;)

Unbeatable on a good day

Today, Beau, Sweets and I had lunch with my Mum and then we walked along Oriental Parade in the sunshine and got gelato. So good. So happy to be where I am :)

Sweets (aka Bubba Goose aka Mama’s little baby aka Spillsa) continues to grow and thrive. She is 10 weeks old and really is a happy wee thing. I was surprised going to coffee group to hear that others babies are grumpy in the evenings. So much so that one Mum makes sure to visit her partner in the day so he can see cheerful baby and another Mum says that her baby hates his Dad. Because he always cries when his dad gets home. :(

Sweets isn’t really inclined to grumpiness. Beau and I have this thing when she gets tired and it is time to put her to sleep that one must *not* make eye contact. It is a big NO, because if you make eye contact with those big blues she will smile at you and you will be sucked in to playing with her! Oh, she’s a tricksy creature ;)

Now for some baby tips from me, to me (future me, who might forget and/or get lazy).

1) Don’t be lazy! Seriously, make sure you wind that baby thoroughly *and* check her nappy before trying to put her to sleep. Because if she has a burp in her or is wet then a stupidly large amount of rocking *will* put her down, but she’ll wake up in 10min or an hour when she would otherwise nap for three due to discomfort. Plus, if you do spend the 3-5min to wind and change her you will more than save that time in rocking.

2) Continuing with not being lazy, stop trying to feed to sleep. See above note about winding and changing. She’ll go to sleep, but just wake up again sooner and you won’t get your sweet internet/baking/sewing/nap time.

3) Burping refresher with the Baby Whisperer:

http://tvnz.co.nz/good-morning/s2009-e210709-babywhisperer-video-2858443

4) Try not to go to bed any later than an hour after than Bubba, because she’s not going to let you sleep later.

5) Wash new brightly coloured clothes seperately. Otherwise you get annoyed with yourself when things turn pink and/or blotchy.

6) Don’t use your back like a crane. That baby is growing daily and is not puny.

7) Make sure you eat and drink lots. Otherwise you get cranky and noone likes that.

8) Enjoy your time with your Pepi. They change almost daily and each day there is something that makes it special. Even the days where you have to do a lot of laundry due to Pepi’s amazing bodily fluid production ;)

Point of Fashion: Hot and BFing
Current Obsession: costuming!!

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Harvest what ye may

Okay, so our garden, which I blogged about a while back, was a bit of a failure. Basically, we planted a whole bunch of stuff and then the weather went insane (2 hailstorms in the following fortnight, a whole lot of gail force wind, etc) and most of the stuff died. Sad. We still have 5 tomato plants courageously growing and while there are flowers, I don’t think we’ll actually get any tomatoes :(

However, the mint, parsley, silverbeet and vietnamese mint that my Mum planted from cuttings, have been doing really well. In fact, anyone experimenting with SE Asian cookery and wanting to try vietnamese mint is welcome to come over and have some. It does better if frequently harvested (Mum nabs it for her restaurant sometimes as Dad mowed theirs a bit).

Other plants that survived include a pretty happy cape gooseberry (I’m hopeful that I’ll get a few fruit), sage (planning fresh sage and onion stuffing later), rosemary and what we thought were 3 beetroot. However, when we looked closer there were multiple beetroot in each “plant” so we’ve harvested the smaller ones (the smallest is like 10cm coin diameter) to let the largest in each planting grow to a decent size. We also have 2 carrots grown from seed (more seed has been planted, we’re hopeful), some radishes growing (I thinned them last week), 8-9 garlic (probably harvest the earlier planting in the next week or so), and about 9 strawberry plants. The strawberries are all grown from friend’s runners, so they should do better next year, we have had a few fruit, (yesterday I picked 4) it’s a matter of getting them before the birds.

On Sunday I was pretty excited as I managed to use things harvested from the garden for dinner!

Silverbeet and Feta Quiche
1 onion (chopped/diced/whatever)
vegetable oil
4 handfuls of silverbeet (I also had some beetroot leaves in there, you can use them the same way)
couscous
1/2 block of feta (chopped)
4 eggs
1c milk
1c yogurt (you can use another c milk instead)
1 handful of parsley
some basil
1t (heaped) salt
1t paprika
some grated cheese (edam) optional

1) heat the oil to a low heat and put the onions in to go translucent (I put the lid to my wok on top), meanwhile rinse and chop your silverbeet. Then add it to the onion. Cover.
2) Beat the eggs (then turn the element off, but leave the silverbeet there to continue to sweat) then mix in the milk and yogurt. Now’s a good time to turn on the oven (180degC)
3) Chop up the parsley and basil, then add them along with the salt and paprika to the egg mixture.
4) Spray your quiche dish with oil then sprinkle couscous over the bottom. This makes a kind of crust for your quiche.
5) Spoon your silverbeet over the couscous then sprinkle the feta over that.
6) pour the egg mix over it all and sprinkle the cheese on top.
7) Bake for approx 60min (taking it out half way and rotating the dish to ensure even cooking).

We ate this with salad.

Point of fashion: PIN group casual
Current Obsession: Baking – Bambi’s over and we’ve made a lemon yogurt cake, chocolate cake in oven and about to start on biscotti!

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Time for Baking

Baking is something that I can find time for. Mainly because you can put baby to sleep, then begin measuring, then go put baby back to sleep, do rest of measuring, then mix and put in oven. You’ve then got some blog reading, laundry folding TV watching time and if baby does wake up, that’s ok, because all you have to do is take it out of the oven (and later on, enjoy).

Still, I’ve only found the time for baking 3 times in the past while and I definitely eased myself into it, starting with “Laurence’s Fruitcake” from the awesome book Tips from your Nana. It only has 3 ingredients!
1) 1kg of mixed dried fruits (I used random pantry fruit, about 40% was prunes, so plum cake ;)
2) 2c Leftover liquid (weak tea made with a preused teabag)
3) 2-3c self-raising flour (3c plain flour 3t baking powder)

I food processed my fruit into a more cake friendly size and then left it overnight soaking in the tea. The next day I mixed in the flour, put some chopped walnuts on top and baked it. It made a *super* fruity cake. Plus, all those prunes surely keep one regular!

Next thing I made was the Edmonds‘ Banana Loaf. I had some bananas in the freezer. I don’t like bananas that are too ripe, so this is one way to make sure they get used. Plus, putting them in the freezer means I can use them when it’s convenient for me. I substituted in 1c of wholemeal flour and added 1t of ground ginger. I like adding the wholemeal flour, it gives it a bit of a nuttier taste. Next time I will add more ginger, couldn’t tell it was there. This was a tasty, not too sweet and filling loaf. Perfect for one who needs to eat quickly! I had it for breakfast and snacks until it was gone. Mum and Beau helped.

Now my baking confidence was back, I was able to do something a little more challenging, I made a gluten free chocolate cake for Muggle’s birthday. I adapted two recipes (the Edmonds “Rich Chocolate cake” and this Healthy Food Guide one). I put it in a silicon 20cm cake dish, this was a little small for the cake and it rose and cracked on top, which was fine, I just cut that off and iced the nice even shaped cake I had left. Beau and I ate the extra bits for dessert with icecream and left over icing.

Giffy’s Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
150g softened butter
3/4c brown sugar
1t vanilla essence
5 eggs, seperated
150g dark chocolate, melted
70g ground almonds (1 packet or 3/4c)
1c Rice flour
1t baking powder
1/2c cocoa
1/2c milk

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks and milk. Sift and mix in almonds, flour, baking powder and cocoa. Mix in melted chocolate. In another bowl beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then fold them into the chocolate mixture. Pour into your cake tin and bake at 190degC for 20min, then reduce heat to 150degC and bake for a further 35min or until firm.

Chocolate Cream cheese icing
50g butter
125g cream cheese
2c icing sugar
2T cocoa
a dash of kahlua

Mix the butter and cream cheese together first, then add everything else. This made *way* more icing than I needed. Also the kahlua didn’t make much difference, should have been a more generous *dash*.

Point of Fashion: On my own (and breastfeeding)
Current Obsession: Beau’s lent vegetarianism begins tomorrow!

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Immunisations are Traumatic

My baby, Sweets, (aka sweet pea, little pea, squeaky pea, chubby cheekums, Cheekums McGee, the chombilator) is now 6 and a half weeks old and in NZ if you believe in immunisations, you get your baby immunised at 6 weeks. So off to the Doctors we went.

Both of us got a clean bill of health and the GP got to be the 3rd health professional in 2 weeks to say… “Her father is tall?”. Sweets is not a little 6 week old. She’s in proportion though! We then headed to the Nurse’s rooms where they got me to *hold Sweets down*! Oh, poor pea, she’s busy smiling away and charming all as usual when the nurse injects her and it is all very upsetting. I was prepared for this though. Both injections were swiftly done and then a cuddle and a feed and she was ok and then cuddled and patted by her Yai (Thai word meaning maternal grandmother) until she fell asleep. Things progressed as normal (waking up at home, playing some more, feed, nappy change, back to sleep) until a little over 5 hours after the injection.

Sweets was having good long nap and began crying out in her sleep. She does this sometimes, normally she’s hungry, although this cry was a little more desperate than usual. Nevermind, she’s been asleep about 3 hours, she’s probably hungry, I think. So, I wake her. Saddest baby ever. Inconsolable. Won’t feed properly, too busy crying. We still try both sides. So much crying! Even taking off her nappy (one of her favourite things) doesn’t help. I even tried feeding her with no nappy on. Still sad. This was not my happy girl, my chirpy cheerful child. My Sweetie is not a cryey baby. She’s a happy, sociable one. This is so unlike her usual self it really upset me. Plus, we needed to get home (I was at my parents). Luckily, she began to settle down and while she was grumpier than normal over the next day or so, she was ok. Overall, I was more upset than her!

Why did the Doctor not think to offer us a Pamol script? Who knows, I think possibly she was distracted by seeing my Mum too. I was quite upset at the time not to have it to offer to her (I may have called Beau saying we needed a Pamol Script, that Sweets was so upset and obviously hurting that not giving her Pamol was like *torturing* her), but when she calmed down, I was pleased I didn’t. If I had offered her Pamol, I would have thought that it was the cure for her distress, when in actual fact she started feeling better anyway. I took her temp when we got home (uneventful car ride and she had a good feed when we got back) and she was running a slight fever. Poor lamb.

Anyhoo, we had quietish days today and yesterday and she’s back to normal and I’m back to “normal” too. Yesterday (wed) was a bit hard for me, as while she was mostly back to normal, I had wicked hayfever and was still a bit high strung after the day before (and the 3 days before that had been pretty full on too). Plus had an unexpected visitor meaning I didn’t get a midday nap. I did get an evening one though and my hayfever meds kicked in, so today, a delightful day of blobbing finds us both completely restored.

Just in time for another busy weekend!

Point of Fashion: I *can* fit prepregnancy jeans, but trackpants are still comfier
Current Obsession: Putting fruit in brandy, I did some peaches and blueberries today, now I’m eyeing up some pears…

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A wealth of friends, an embarrassment of gifts

Our Sweets is now a little over a month old and still continues to delight us. She’s a good girl who eats and sleeps and plays. Not much more you can ask for in an under 6 week old (she also wees and poos, but that isn’t really interesting unless you are a parent). We’ve taken many photos of her and recently ordered the photo we’ve chosen for our “Thank-you”s. It’s the first picture I got of her smiling, she’s only 10 days old!

Things are going well and people keep telling me how beautiful she is and how good I look. I attribute my goodness to the awesome support I have received from friends and family. Eg In the past six weeks, the number of lunches or dinners Beau and I have had to prepare for ourselves would be less than 10. We haven’t bought that many takeaways either! Most of this has been thanks to my Mum who comes over almost every day with food. Another huge shout-out has to go to those who provided baking. Esp Zeph who gave me individually wrapped fruit muffins. Kept in the freezer, these are quickly defrosted for a quick breakfast or snack that can be eaten tidily with one hand. An important factor when breastfeeding. When asked by others what can they provide, this is one of the things I ask for (Debz gave me dinosaur shaped ones!) and one of the things I recommend to other new mums (or soon to be mums).

Another example of the generosity of others is Sweets’ clothes. Or the fact that we have yet to buy her any! She is entirely outfitted in clothes given and passed down by our wonderful friends and family. Of special note are the clothes that have been made for her. Jexia personalised a white long-sleeved top with her name. It’ll be a cool reminder of how small she was. Unfortunately there are some clothes(0000 or newborn size) she has never been able to wear as she is a big girl. It won’t be long now ’til she moves up to the next size of clothes. She’s going to be in things labelled 3-6 months by the time she’s 2 months!

I’ve been so touched by the thoughtfulness of others. My friends’ Mums were an unexpected source of affection. Their desire to see me and Sweets (and give us presents!) makes me realise I have a place in their lives beyond just, that friend of their daughters. It also makes me look forward to being a granny one day, because seriously, my and Beau’s mums seem to love it, and my friends’ mums are getting as much vicarious granny action as they can!

However, there is one downside to all this wonderful generosity, namely the 50+ thank-you notes I feel compelled to write. You can see why we still haven’t managed our Wedding thank-you notes, right?

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!

Point of Fashion: Homebody
Current Obsession: Gingerbread nomnomnom

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Overdue and now Overjoyed

So, our Sweets was born 8 days late… and is a girl :) I had a pretty quick straightforward labour with no medical pain management, but after pushing for over 2 hours ended up having an epidural and episiotomy so that they could use forceps to ease her out.

Sweets is a big girl and weighed in at 4.38kg. Her head circumference was also >90th percentile. She’s what is known as large for dates. Hmm.

I had hoped to be able to give birth without any medical interventions, but at the time I appreciated that I was tired and that it wasn’t going to do me or Sweets any favours to be a martyr about it. I felt really well supported by my Beau, my Muggle, my Mum and my midwife. I’m proud of myself for labouring well. It’s kind of amazing to me that the breathing techniques in yoga were so effective. The labour progressed well, starting at about 4am, moving onto 2nd stage (fully dilated and pushing) at about 11.30am. This is considered especially quick for a first time labour.

While the acupuncture and acupressure didn’t bring the labour on before christmas, I’m wondering if it did have an effect in preparing my body for birth. I also did a fair amount of standing/walking and even when I reached second stage favoured upright positions. These are all supposed to help, and whether they did or not, they felt *right* to me at the time. My least favourite thing was lying passively (actually my least-least favourite thing was sitting still and hunched over while they sorted out the epidural)!

The best thing, of course, is that I/we got a lovely, healthy baby out of it. She is two weeks old today and I catch myself just staring at her and marvelling over just how much I love her. It helps that she is currently sleeping well. I’m told that this is likely to change. I’m just going to enjoy her as she is right now.

Point of Fashion: Breastfeeding.
Current Obsession: Is she going to look like me at all???

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Something old is new for me

For those who don’t realise, I really, really, really would like the baby to be born before Christmas. At this stage, the earlier the better (I’m over 38 weeks now, so baby really is full term, estimated due date is at 40 weeks). I’m trying a bunch of stuff to tell my body that now is the time. Raspberry leaf tea, expressing breast milk (I have about 2mL stored), evening primose oil etc. The latest thing I’ve tried and the one recommended by my midwives, is acupuncture.

So, acupuncture has been around for about 3000 years! That’s a long time. Much longer than, say, panadol (a little over 50 years). Now, “they” don’t really know how acupuncture works, but neither do “they” really know how paracetamol works… it’s debatable anyway. Anyway, Beau and I have previously talked about acupuncture and we decided, even though neither of us have ever tried it, that we believe in it. Like, we believe it works. Now, it might not work for everyone, but that’s true of modern medicines too. So, I decided to try it.

Yesterday I called, booked and had a session of acupuncture at City Osteopaths. I went for a “Pregnancy” treatment, one designed to give me energy and get my uterus, cervix etc in shape for for birth. I also got an extra needle put in to help with my swollen ankles… my feet are a little sausage-looking. It was nice. Acupucture needles are *tiny*. Heaps thinner than injection needles or blood test needles or any sewing needles I’ve ever seen. They are so thin they are bendy. More like hairs than needles. Totally doesn’t hurt when they put them in either, they have a little tube around them and the acupuncturist positions them over you and then taps the needle down into the tube. All you really feel is the tube hitting your skin. They you just have to lie there for like 30 min. Sweet.

The acupuncturist also did a demo needle on Beau so that he could feel it and showed him how to find acupressure points on me to help with pain management during labour, plus one on my shoulders that can help with let down of milk. I’m booked in for another session next week where I will be going for an “inducing” session. She will be using some of the *forbidden points*. Normally forbidden in pregnancy because they induce labour and you don’t want that happening too early. She will also get out the Vivid and draw on me the labour acupressure points. Which is pretty awesome.

Now, it might be that I’m one of those women who don’t want people touching her in labour. Either way, I feel reassured knowing that I have these options and tools available to me. The more relaxed and prepared I feel, the less afraid I feel and the more likely that I will have a positive birth experience… right?

Point of Fashion: No reason to get dressed
Current Obsession: acupuncture

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False Alarm, False Alarm

So, I had plans for this weekend, plans involving gardening, tidying the nursery, crafting. I didn’t manage any of that (accept for a tiny amount of ironing for crafting). I did manage a bunch of other stuff though!

On Saturday, I had a midwife appointment and I was displaying some of the symptoms of pre-eclampsia, namely trace protein and oedema (swelling, well in my case puffy ankles and fingers). Normal blood pressure though. Anyway, no biggie, midwife just wanted me to get my blood and urine tested on Monday. Unless I started to feel ill or the oedema got worse. I didn’t and it didn’t, so no biggie. I didn’t make it to Hivemind’s party however as was having a hard time staying awake. What a nana.

Good thing I got that extra sleep though, ’cause some time during the night, my Braxton Hicks, which had been quite frequent but painless over the last few days, decided to become painful, although not very painful. I kept waking up, but managing to get back to sleep again. I didn’t even think that they might be “real” contractions until about 10.30am. Even then, if I was in early stage of labour, there wasn’t much I could do except continue on as normal. So, I had lunch with Beau’s family (his brother was down for birthday weekend) and then we went to my parent’s for a maternity photoshoot. Got some nice pictures too :) After that it was family dinner with my whanau.

Nothing much was happening with the contractions, so I was mostly just uncomfortable, but Beau and the rest of the whanau were getting quite excited. We went home and bed at a reasonable hour and they stopped sometime after 4am. I was pretty tired and achey for the rest of the day. Quite pleased that things had changed either way though. Would not want to have that happening for days on end. Unfortunately my bloods came back that afternoon a bit marginal (according to midwife), so I was told to get me to a hospital on Tuesday. Again, no biggie, no rush, but to make sure I got into the Obs clinic mid-morning. I asked what was likely to happen; most likely, more testing and maybe booked in for follow up tests; worst case (and unlikely), I would be admitted and booked in for an induction.

Tuesday morning I was feeling pretty good thanks to a nice long bath and wheat bags on sore tummy muscles the night before. Beau, Mum and I made our way to the hospital and I was told it’d take about 4 hours and could I please pee into this cup. Le sigh. More blood taken, Sweets was monitored, my blood pressure was taken, I got given a packed lunch, more blood pressure checks, more monitoring, some feeling around of my belly and at the end of it we were both declared perfectly fine.

So basically, some excitement, but all is back to normal. Except that Beau and Mum both feel a bit let down that they haven’t got a Sweets to cuddle yet. I’m quite pleased to have a bit more time as I still haven’t cut my wrap out yet!!

Point of Fashion: Maternity
Current Obsession: Glee, I wants more!

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