Sunday 31 July 2011

Our Dance

While I was nursing today, I stroked the back of Penelope's head, her hair like a silken web, and it felt just like it did when I reached down to feel her crowning. So, of course it caused me to flashback to her birth...

... or what I refer to as "our dance".


I am attempting to write more about the experience of her birth itself. It's a lot. It's personal. It's a lot of info you might not need to know :) Until I manage to finish the editing of the story to post it... I give you more pictures. (see next post)


And to those of you who want the complete story, let's make a tea date.

The many faces of Penelope...

It's been one week since Penelope was born ... and over the past seven days, like many new parents, we have taken an obscene amount of photographs. 

Most of them are of her sleeping ~ beautiful, sweet, and precious. 



And then there are the many faces of Penelope...

 the "screw you I'm trying to sleep"
 the "more boob please"
the "didn't you hear me? I said more boob!"
the stretch
the "I'm cute as hell, now feed me"

and the smile ...
 oh the smile. <3

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Baby!

Penelope Mae 

July 24th, 7:47am 

born naturally at home 

8lbs, 8oz, 55cms

Wednesday 20 July 2011

The henna blessing

Henna has long been used to celebrate and bless various holidays, weddings and the upcoming births of babes. I am lucky enough to have a friend who is incredibly talented who gave me a henna blessing as a shower gift. It's really a beautiful way to commemorate the belly. 



 














Since the mother is the second phase of the goddess, Lisa (Tribal Pulse Dance and Henna) chose to make that the focus, adding in a couple various totems (spider and serpent), and a lotus to symbolize my hips and pelvis opening for the birth (spirals could be said to represent the never ending spiral of frenzy I'm about to enter into... hehe just teasing).

Picture yourself (really close to your due date) simply sitting in the sunshine, relaxing in your backyard while a beautiful woman with incredible energy shares a blessing of the goddess with you and your babe. Throw in some delicious iced tea and great conversation and you have the perfect afternoon... it really was lovely - and a week later, the stain from the henna is still here!

A really cool thing happened after I got my henna done. I was asked to model again for Belly & Body Beautiful at the Busker's Rendezvous Fool's Overture. Having the opportunity to combine the body painting with the henna was really incredible - Buskers blog and pics coming soon!!

 

Thursday 14 July 2011

Lint and lace and seeing red... with the whites

So, I'm adjusting to sharing space again with another person. And, today it became known to me that while J is ridiculously intelligent, hilarious to the point of making you pee your pants a little because you're laughing so hard at his horrible jokes, and sexier than I could have ever hoped for in a partner, he has never been taught how to do laundry. 

As I write this, much as I did this morning as I hung the clothing he washed on the line, I'm giggling (a lot). Why? Because friends, I'm not talking about him not knowing how to "add clothes & detergent to the washing machine and turning the knob to start" kind of doing laundry... I'm not even talking about different spin cycles for various textiles or stain removal. I'm talking about sorting. 

 
Notice anything odd about this picture?



Please note: this is one load of laundry; all of this was washed together. 



I thought of writing him a letter... 

Hi Sweetheart,

I really appreciate your help around the house, and how willing you are to help out with chores, so please don't take this the wrong way: Darling, your laundry skills suck. 

I understand you are a 28 year old male who has been fending for yourself for a long time and may not have had to worry about that amazingly bright red t-shirt dying your girlfriend's favorite white skirt pink, or cared about having towel fluff on your t-shirts. You may not have thought about the fact that your black sport socks would leave lint on the tea towels, which will transfer onto our clean dishes when we dry them. And you know those little lace panties you love? They are so much sexier without tears in them.

Thank you for doing the laundry this week. I'm especially thankful to whichever gods or faeries are responsible (and cold water)for the miraculous saving of our whites. But, before you get the urge to simply dump what's in a hamper straight into the washing machine, hit start and wash your belt with your pants again, I figure it's better late than never... 




Too much? :) 

All my love,
Tricia 

(ps. thank you in advance for not getting upset with me for razing you on the internet)



Friday 8 July 2011

The nesting begins...

Everyone warned me; all the ladies said it would happen. I doubted it. Yet, here I am, in my kitchen on a daily basis cooking and baking. And I must mention, doing this as I looking out the window at the lovely piece of folk art/bird feeder I purchased (bird feeder? who the hell am I?). This is what they tell me is nesting

Now if only the urge to clean and finish the nursery would hit.

I've made organic brownies, kale chips, a half a dozen different pasta salads, 3 amazing meals a day and I can't seem to stop perusing cooking blogs for bbq side dishes.  As tribute to one of my favorite childhood tarts,  I have decided to tackle my nan's Strawberry Shortcake from scratch (best biscuits ever) for dessert tonight.

Now, having been domestically disabled for a large portion of my adult life, I'd say this is a problem but I'm feeding the wee one great nutritious food, and learning how to cook meals that will save us money, so it's all good. 

One thing I'm not doing though (as it's hot and all I want right now is an endless supply of fruit salad) is cooking big meals that I can take servings of to freeze for after our babe arrives. I've done a zucchini pasta - that's it. 

So I am graciously asking (puuuulllllease *sob *beg *plead) for recipes and meal ideas for August -- what freezes well and is easy to re-serve or what's super easy to make while I'm nursing? aka: starving yet have no energy too cook
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