Friends

One thing that Rich and I are very sad about is the fact that Rafi is growing up without any cousins nearby. It can be such a special relationship, and though I didn't grow up around cousins I have seen my friends and their children have very special connections with cousins who grow up close by. Raf has two cousins very close in age to him - Rory and Rafe - and I think we really miss out not living closer to them.

When Raf was enrolled in his old nursery, he had two great friends - Sawyer and Rory. Amidst a large group of girls, these were the three boys - close in age and similar in personality - and they became fast friends. We were sad to leave the nursery and even sadder to leave these two lovely little boys. Raf has seen Sawyer a few times since December, but this past weekend was the first opportunity we've had to get all three boys together.

We all met at Sawyer's house and had a fabulous morning with Sawyer's mum and his older brother Colby (the sweetest boy who looks after all of his little friends like a good big cousin), and Rory's mums: mommy and mama B. We all had a lovely time while the boys played. I like to think of all the boys keeping in touch over the years. I think it's really special to have life-long friends.

Raf had a really fun time and at the end they all enjoyed a good hug. Raf is a very vigorous hugger!

Market Square 10K.

A few weeks ago we signed up for a 10km race in New Hampshire. Given how terrible I've been feeling it looked unlikely that I'd be doing it, but this morning I felt fairly fine so we went down to Portsmouth at the crack of dawn prepared to walk most of the course as a family. 

When I went to bed last night, trying to get some good sleep before the big race, Raf looked like a little angel. 

Within minutes, though, he'd changed positions and this morning I woke up to him like this... with me perilously close to falling off the side of the bed and Rich in the spare bed. Of course because we had to get up early Raf didn't stir until minutes before we left, so once he was awake (barely) I got him dressed in bed and we popped him in the car with his breakfast.

This is us before the race. Raf is very, very attached to me at the moment, and if mama is around he wants to be hanging off some body part. I love it, though it is a bit exhausting sometimes as I lump him around. But who can resist this little love bug?

Kisses and hugs for mama.

Making our way to the start area (there were around 2000 runners so it was busy!).

Here's Raf warming up for the race. He did some jumping on the spot and then stretching exercises. Here he is reaching to the sky...

And here is touching his toes (he hasn't quite gotten the part about keeping your legs straight).

Okay, let's get this show on the road.

One quick photo before we're off....

We had such a fun race! I felt really great when running and we managed to finish running sub 10mins miles (just... though the official time is slower because we clearly ran farther than we were meant to, according to my Garmin).

This is Rich and Raf being silly billies with their post race sandwiches.

Cheese!

One final family portrait... in black and white as I'm red as a beetroot in the original photo :)

I didn't stop smiling the entire race, even though I now have a sore achilles and calf (too many hills!) but it was totally worth it. Raf was a little star and loved 'racing'. Rich, who was pushing Raf, got a few comments about being 'super dad', which I did get a little miffed at since I was the one running with poppet on board!!! He loved it!

Afterward we walked around Portsmouth and had a lovely time browsing the market stalls as there was a festival in the town. We bought some lovely little hand made shoes for Poppet and then we stopped in for some lunch at a bar where Raf devoured a big plate of chips (fries) and then left his hummus sandwich. We walked down to see the boats and just as Raf looked as though he was about to lose it, we hopped in the car and drove home.

Lovely, lovely day after a less than stellar week.

Poppet 2

A very busy week here. After my Monday descent into crazy, I felt a little better on Tuesday and so went away on a work retreat for two days. It was my third night away from Raf (once was a hospital stay and the other was another work retreat). Honestly I have felt better but I called my midwife and they had an appointment for me on Wed, after the retreat.

Fortunately for me I got to see my so far favourite midwife, Jen, who is just a lovely woman, fully of empathy and understanding. She was very kind. Baby Poppet was measuring right on (22cm), with a nice strong heart beat, though he kept moving around a lot! We did talk about how I can try to recoup some health, and to that end I agreed to work half days for a couple of weeks. It felt like such a relief, but it's working out to be just not tenable. Yesterday I got up and started work at 5am and worked straight through, with breakfast and lunch at my desk, until I had to leave in the early afternoon for a PT appointment. And then I worked until 11pm last night. Today was not much better. 

Oh well. Hopefully things will be less crazy in the next couple of weeks.

Today I had my first growth scan. Rich was planning on coming with Raf but had a last minute emergency so I was left going with Raf on my own. Let me say that this was somewhat challenging, but Raf was such a good boy and was excited to see the baby on the telly! Fortunately the sonographer was fast and we were in and out very quickly. 

Baby is measuring a few days ahead still, but mostly everything is measuring average - even the head! The exception is that tummy of his, which is pretty big :) 

He was head down, but because he was facing away from my tummy we couldn't get any good photos of him. I do have some film and some snap shots of his hand (which is pretty cool) but no real image. Hopefully next time! I'll scan a picture in tomorrow.

Us, Poppet, and the Little Boy Wonder

Time for a blog name change!

Us

Poppet (the new Poppet) 

And the Little Boy Wonder (formerly known as the Poppet!)

Meet the Animals...

Here's a quick except from Rafi's daily journal from 06/01 as he went to Pineland Farms. Pineland was formerly a psychiatric hospital (one of those foreboding Victorian types for the 'feeble-minded' of past times) until the mid-nineties and has been transformed into a business/educational center but also retains a working farm and many trails for all sorts of personal pursuits... 'We got to feed and milk the cows! Rafi shows no fear of the cows! He ran right into the barn and couldn't wait to pet them. We also got to go into the chicken pen and collect eggs. Rafi was laughing at all the chickens when they circled around him. At one point he got so excited he did a little dance. It was very cute. At the end of the tour we went to the 'farm yard' to see the goats and rabbits.' It's wonderful to hear about Rafi interacting with animals - and whilst we are conflicted about how he will interact given the commercial interests that are usually paramount in these operations i.e zoos, circuses and wildlife parks which are basically prisons for animals - we are still keen for Raf to learn and be aware of animals and their natural needs (not humans) in the best possible ways. Explaining factory farms, the fur trade, 'sport' hunting, animal abuse, animal experiments and meat eating will be part of that learning process for Raf (and No. 2) - as will be the people and organisations that pick up the pieces of these industries, and do their best in unrelenting circumstances such as Peace Ridge in Maine. We're hoping to take Raf to this sanctuary sometime soon and meet some animals that have survived the harsh realities of modern farming and/or individual abuse/neglect...plus Raf is also taken by the wild turkeys that pass through the yard on a daily basis with cries of 'the Turks!'

Oof.

This probably sums things up. I hate to moan but honestly I feel so physically decrepit that I feel like bursting into tears throughout the day. This morning I woke up with a pounding headache and sore throat and so on top of the fatigue and nausea I feel utterly miserable.

At least we may have a reason for the crazy fatigue. I spoke with my midwife this morning and my ferritin levels are quite low. This is a surprise since the levels were so high early on in pregnancy, and in spite of being vegan/veggie for most of my life I've never actually been anemic. I started iron supplementation today and already I feel even sicker as they are not easy on the stomach. I'm about to order some floradix, which is meant to be much gentler - so hopefully that will help. I am also vit D deficient, which isn't actually a surprise because no matter what I do to supplement my levels are consistently low.

And as I write this I can tell I am seconds away from throwing up the iron supplement. Help.

And on top of all of this I am unbelievably anxious about whether this boy will be okay. I know it's likely because today was the due date of the pregnancy we lost in November, and I suspect the sickness, the tummy ache, the over all crappiness is combining to unleash all sort of anxiety. I'm going away for a work retreat tomorrow for a couple of days and what I really want to do is to stay here and demand an appointment with my midwife tomorrow so she can make this all better.

Hello Wet June

May was a very busy month, including on this blog! Lovely to see posts from Richi-o, though I sill have so many blogs I want to write, especially about my dad and his birthday celebration towards the beginning of the month, and lots of funny things and memories about him. Everyday we all seem to miss him much, much more. That's the awful thing about losing someone; you can't quite comprehend the loss at first because you simply can't know the accumulated moments when you find yourself wishing that someone was still around to share that one moment. I shared a lot of moments, even just by phone, with Raf's papa, and it leaves an ever gaping hole as life just goes on. 

On an almost daily basis I say to Rich, 'oh, dad would get such a kick out of' (insert observation.. but usually I'm referring to something that Raf is doing/saying). And it's true. My dad really enjoyed Raf in a way that is not replicable, it seems. He took such delight in him, often referring to him as a 'lovely little chap', and when I spoke to him when he was out of the hospital following his bout of pneumonia, mum had shown him some photos of Raf running through the woods, and dad commented that he 'keeps getting better and better' and that they had better get over to visit to see him/us.

I miss having a person in Raf's life who was so enchanted by him. I know that I am probably annoying to listen to when I gush over the little boy, but my dad did, too, and I miss being able to share that in the way that I did.

Anyway, this blog was meant to be more of a catch-up because time is ticking, we haven't done a thing to get ready for this new little boy. We're no nearer a name, and all the names we like are a bit problematic for different reasons.

So what have we been doing? On Friday I took my lovely fast bike out for the first ride of the season! I doubt there will be too many more as my center of gravity shifts and I get too big for the drop bars on my TT. It was a slow ride on my fast bike, which was a bit depressing but also fine as I'm carrying a passenger. Here's the passenger!

The weekend, though, turned into a wet right-off. Yesterday we had torrential rain and after gym class (which took several years off my life as Raf was not into listening AT ALL), we couldn't get him to nap and it was a bit of a horror-show the rest of the evening. Raf is definitely transitioning out of his nap. God help us.

Another wet day today. Raf is actually a bit sick with a cold and so sleep has been difficult but today was a treat as our dear friend Fia was in town and so we collected her from Portland, grabbed some things for lunch, and headed back to ours for something to eat and a very, very wet walk in the rain. We had a lovely time, and Raf really loved her!

Baby boy 2 seems to be doing well. Raf kisses 'him' (well, my stomach) a lot, and can get quite frantic with the hugging and kissing.. we need to work on being more gentle. It is very sweet, though, and in the morning Raf says 'hi, baby', 'kiss the baby?' and then at night he says 'goodnight, baby', and more - many more - kisses.

This Friday I begin my monthly scan to check on growth, etc. I have a lupus diagnosis and so it's just protocol. And a certain point they become weekly scans, which is a pain but, again, it's protocol, which we're fine with. It's hard to believe that we're more than half way to meeting this munchkin. Already I'm looking forward to not being violently ill on most days of the week..!

Sadly I am really sick still, as I was with Raf. I had a couple of weeks of feeling really great (though still on my anti-nausea meds) but that honeymoon ended and I'm back to vomiting at least daily, and sometimes, like today, several times. Food aversions are back in full force and I have to admit that it is a bit of a nightmare sometimes. I'm also very, very, very fatigued and I'm wondering when my second trimester energy will kick in... given I'm closer to being in the third trimester than the first, then I am guessing it may not kick in at all!