A Month of Frankie

Can you believe it has been a month since our little Frankie arrived?

I can't. It confusingly feels like a month has gone in the blink of an eye yet at the same time it has been one of the longest months of my life.

It's hard to imagine life before Frankie, she has slotted into out little family like she was always here. Piper is an amazing big sister, her patience with Frankie is impressive (except for when Frankie screams in the car - then Piper blocks her ears and lets it be known she is not happy). We are experiencing the usual hurdles of introducing a new sibling, but mostly our little family is happy and rolling with the changes.

Frankie is healthy and growing fast, and although she looks identical to Piper as a baby there is one big difference, Frankie is our chubby bubby. She has fat rolls layering all 4 limbs and so many chins I have stopped counting!
I have had some ups and downs since Frankie's birth, unfortunately there were some complications both during and after that have caused us a bit of stress and worry but we are almost over it all now and moving on.

A round-up of our month:

1. Most number of clothing changes I have needed in one day = 4
2. Number of times Frankie has poohed or peed on her Dad in one day = 4
3. Number of public throw-ups large enough to require an immediate return home = 3
4. Number of new grey hairs Naz has acquired = 4876 (he does the Richard Gere look well)
5. Return visits to American Hospital for Mumma = too bloody many to count
6. Ambulance rides back to hospital = 1 (Mumma not Frankie luckily)
7. 4 year old sister tantrums = 15
8. Maximum hours of uninterrupted sleep Naz and I have had in the past month = 4.5 hours
9. Packets of late night Tim Tams eaten = 22
10. Smiles in this house = 1,000

First Week

Welcome Frankie Lulu

Frankie Lulu O'Brien

Born - 3rd November 2013 @ 9:14am
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Weight - 3.5 kg

Length - 51.5cm

Sisters first meeting

A beautiful weekend

If you pop by regularly you will notice this little blog has had a makeover.
I guess in some way this is like the 2013 version of 'nesting' - blog makeover, sorting out my data clouds and digital photography filing and storage are all on my to do list  - now I have finally started maternity leave!

I have had so much on at work that I wasn't really consciously aware of the toll it was taking on me until I stopped. The freedom and feeling of not heading off to work tomorrow is exhilarating and very welcome, a break and some time at home is exactly what I need right now at 38 weeks pregnant.

We have enjoyed a great weekend with lots of relaxing and fun with friends. A BBQ and drinks yesterday which turned into a highly competitive board game evening and this afternoon we met up with a couple of other families for a sunset swim and picnic dinner at the beach. How gorgeous is the pic of Piper with her friends - I cannot put into words how well this group of kids get along and play together.

Nesting and a baby update

Last week I promised a baby update, so here it is.

The most important thing is we are all healthy and doing well.

We had a scare two weeks ago that caused us to reassess our plans for the next few weeks, so those of you expecting to see Naz in Australia at the moment, sorry guys he is right here next to me where he is needed a little bit more! Piper and I are both pretty happy not to be waving him off on another trip back to Melbourne.

Our visit to the obstetrician last week was positive and we are definitely feeling more relaxed this week.

With Naz no longer able to collect our final baby items from Australia we realised we had better get our butts into gear and organise the nursery, this has taken up a lot of our time the last 2 weekends - nothing is ever easy and straightforward in Dubai.
But we are almost done and I guess you could say I have well and truly started nesting. It's strange but fun this time knowing the sex of our bubba.

Piper has been mostly helpful but at times feels the need to exert her big sister authority and refuses to allow certain items to pass down to her little sister. I see some growing pains and hurdles in the future but mostly I think she is going to make an amazing big sister. She spends her days at the moment tending to her 'babies' and asking lots of questions about how to hold babies and why they do this and why do they do that.

Hopefully not too long now til we get to meet her!

Milestones

This week the new school year started and three months of summer holidays came to an end. It's funny how we have become acustomed to being on the British/American curriculum time table of September through to June.

Piper is attending 4 year old pre school, although school here has an option to start at the age of 4 we made a very conscious decision to let her be a kid for as long as possible, and so another pre school year it is.

I also reached the 30 week milestone this week! We had an obstetrician appointment earlier in the week and all is going perfectly.  We spent this past weekend car seating shopping and baby preparing, suddenly aware of how little time we have left, especially when we have to fit in a house move and another trip back to Australia shortly for Naz.

We move house in a couple of days and will be without internet access for for a bit but I will pop in next week with some pics of our new home hopefully.

To all our Aussie friends and family - happy election weekend!! We went to the Australian Consulate and voted this morning, sadly no sausage sizzle awaited us.


First day of school for 2013-2014 school year




30 Weeks



In case you missed it..... THIS HAPPENED!

YES, Bubba number 2 is due in early November!!! We are all very excited, nervous but excited. It is going to be a very different story this time around.

Bub will be born here in the UAE, we have made a family decision to stay here until at least October 2014.

We are now 17 weeks pregnant and boy am I glad to get to this point. I could not be having a more different pregnancy to my dream one with Piper.
Up until the last two weeks ago I have been experiencing 24 hour a day morning sickness and cannot even describe how bad it was. I was so lucky the first time around and this really took me by surprise.
I may have scarred Piper for life, I caught her this weekend playing Mum with her dolls and making horrid sick noises and running to the toilet..... oops!!
I have also had strange cravings which included eating Japanese for lunch and dinner every day straight for over a week, it was the only thing I could keep down. Miso soup was my best friend for awhile there.

Naz departed for a month of work back in Australia in early May and he returns home tonight! I think I might be more excited than Piper. But I have to admit I am rather impressed I survived this month and one earlier in the pregnancy, solo parenting and working full-time whilst basically attached to the toilet.

However Naz hasn't exactly been having a holiday back in Melbourne. As well as working his full-time job at the fire brigade, he has also been working hard on our new business venture, but I will save that story for another blog post.

I know I annoy the Mum's with my inconsistent blogging (most likely the only readers of our blog, well at least the only ones that tell me off anyway) but with Naz back in just 3 hours I will have more time to update.

Thank you for all your well wishes and over the phone and Skype support the last few months, even though most of you are far away you have still made this a really exciting time and helped me through some tough days x