Violet Lilianna Carding's Blog

My food diary

2012-02-01T21:34:00.000+11:00

25th Dec - 31st Jan

So far I've tasted ten yummy foods, but I really LOVE sweet potato mash!

Rice cereal
Avocado
Sweet potato
Potato
Banana
Baby porridge
Blueberries
Pumpkin
Grape
Apricot

High chair YAY!!

2012-01-26T13:19:00.001+11:00

First non-milk feed

2011-12-26T15:50:00.001+11:00

My cousin Oscar

2011-12-23T22:01:00.000+11:00

A highlight of my trip to England was meeting my only cousin, Oscar. We had lots of fun together and he really was a hoot - I couldn't stop giggling when he was around.

My cousin sang me songs....

read me books...

and always wanted me to sit on his lap.

I can't wait to see him again.

First international travel diary

2011-12-21T22:14:00.000+11:00

My first international trip was amazing fun!

I enjoyed the flight and snoozed for 8 hours without waking up, despite an older boy who kept waking and crying next to me. First we visited Hong Kong, it was very exciting with lots of people everywhere. We weaved my little pram around lots of small streets visiting all the sights. I liked the nunnery and pretty gardens surrounded by skyscrapers.

Back on another airplane for another 6 hour sleep then a big smile for granny at London Heathrow airport at 5.30am. I had to be wrapped up warm as the sky was different to Hong Kong and Sydney.

My auntie Sarah gave me some jeans and long sleeved T-shirt with my favourite celebrity on - the very hungry caterpillar. She also gave me lots of hugs and kisses which I really enjoyed.

I visited lots of British pubs, my first was the Rising Sun in Berkhamsted. It was very small and loud. I'm not sure that everyone was used to seeing someone so small there.

There were lots of important people to meet...like grandad who was quite tall and a conservative and my nana who had brown curly hair and a long pointed nose.

To be continued...

Check out all the photos and videos from my trip here!

At the beach - Hamilton Island

2011-11-04T09:34:00.001+11:00

Behind you...

2011-10-13T13:31:00.001+11:00

What on earth is the dog doing?!

Ah, Sunday. Day of rest.

2011-10-09T13:23:00.000+11:00

Good morning

2011-10-02T09:57:00.002+11:00

Noooo!! Hiccups

2011-09-20T19:10:00.000+10:00

First book

2011-09-15T11:59:00.001+10:00

The tried and tested format of the ___ goes ____. Fascinating for a baby girl, particularly when accompanied by high contrast highly coloured pictures.

I've had to squash this video down a bit to upload here but you can find the original high definition version here.

Puzzlement

2011-09-11T20:01:00.001+10:00

Her parents get this look 3 or 4 times a day.

Good Lord what are you doing?!

Picnic with whales on the beach

2011-08-24T11:43:00.001+10:00

It was a beautiful sunny mid-winter's day in Sydney yesterday - 20 degrees and blue skies.

Violet and I headed to the local beach, North Curl Curl for a walk and after finding a nice spot to sit down and watch the surfers had the added privilege of spotting a huge whale - feeding right behind the surf (and surfers). He popped up and down a few times and we got to see him quite close up. (The photo above is indicative of what we saw!)

Violet was so excited that we ended up having an unplanned picnic on the beach - our first au naturel feed - good thing it was a warm day!

Violet's first encounter with Aussie bureaucracy!

2011-08-20T08:39:00.000+10:00

Third attempt of passport photos for Violet - here's the proposed photo we hope will be accepted by the bureaucrats!

Here are the strict rules from the Australian Government website:

Children and babies

show the baby or child awake, looking straight at the camera with mouth closed and no pacifier.
show both edges of the face clearly (no toys, blankets, chair backs or other people visible) and no hair across the eyes.

parent's hand visible	dark background	eyes closed
looking away	mouth open/ face covered

Greedy goose Violet!

2011-08-14T23:00:00.000+10:00

Violet is doing very well - she weighed in last week at 3.8kg (8.4lbs) - the nurse said that normal expected progress would be 3.5kg (7.7lbs) based on her previous weight.

We've been getting out and about more - parenting group, lunch, walks with Sapphy and trips to the shops - very exciting stuff!

Lots of gurgling, grunting and snorting including sounds vaguely like 'hello' emerging. I actually think most of the sounds are food related - please feed me, I'm trying to shuffle down, I've done a poo etc!

We are getting sleep luckily as grizzle time seems to be mostly between 4-8pm so feeling pretty good.

Looking forward to getting back to swimming in a couple of weeks.Next week we have immunisations and six week check-ups - mum and baby.

Baby thai chi

2011-08-14T12:23:00.000+10:00

Parenting group #1

2011-08-11T23:30:00.000+10:00

Today Violet and I met our fellow mums and babies at the Harbord Early Childhood Center for the first of four parent group meetings.

All the babies were born around the same time and aged between 3-6 weeks old. All the mums looked frazzled and there was one token dad who seemed to look more frazzled than all of us by the end of the session...

We were asked to share both the 'worst' and 'most memorable' thing about the birth. (Essentially the same thing for most of us but I don't think that was the intention!)

The general consensus was that the worst part were the contractions leading up to the pushing stage (we were all happy to be able to push by then). The best memory was skin on skin time with the little one immediately after birth as well as witnessing our loved one's first encounter with baby.

I found myself almost feeling grateful about my 5 hour projectile vomiting, cripplingly painful, no drugs ordeal after hearing some of the other labour stories. For example one lady was carried out of her home to an ambulance by the builders working next door 'naked and covered in blood'. Yet another example of a home birth disaster!

Violet was also weighed by the nurse, kindly decorating their scales with wee and vomit.

It's Hammock time

2011-08-08T20:30:00.000+10:00

Violet is connected

2011-08-07T17:00:00.000+10:00

Violet is only a few weeks old but is already blogging, emailing and tweeting!

As family and friends are so far away use this address to send Violet messages to read at a later date!

Could be news from home, birthday messages etc:

violetcarding@gmail.com

Follow Violet on Twitter:

@violetcarding

Hiccapups!

2011-07-26T17:00:00.000+10:00

The first few days

2011-07-19T08:22:00.000+10:00

Violet launches her modelling career - 2 days old

2011-07-14T19:00:00.000+10:00

Welcome to the world!

2011-07-13T19:00:00.000+10:00

Beautiful Violet Lilianna Carding joined the world on Wednesday 13th July 2011 at 1.50pm weighing 3.09 kg.

Induced at 38 weeks, two weeks early due to mum having developed Obstetric cholestasis at 34 weeks, Violet was very keen to make an appearance with a speedy four hour labour and only three quarters of an hour birth.

All in all it was a surreal experience and so much happened in a short space of time (things moved too quickly for any serious pain relief).

And before we knew it we had a little lady in our arms and the obstetrician (Chris Hunter) was standing in front of us, in bow tie and butchers apron, holding up the placenta declaring 'what a beautiful specimen' it was!

The Arrival

2011-07-12T11:04:00.000+10:00

It's a rare privilege to be present at the beginning of a life, something not every man gets to do and normally not more than once or twice in a lifetime. Despite 2 days of classes not that long before Violet's arrival telling me exactly how to prepare, I wasn't entirely sure I knew that I was ready for the experience. I certainly had no idea how to best record it. I was, though, absolutely determined to be 'present in the moment' and to remember as much as I could, to record as much as I could in my head.

We had the peculiar privilege of knowing when the birth would be so I thought it would be easier to plan for the moment and make sure I had a notebook to write down what was going on and what I was thinking at the time. I'll list the contents of my notebook for the day later, they're not particularly significant!

To tell the story in chronological order I need to begin the night before. We arrived at the hospital at around seven thirty to begin the process. It could be made unpleasantly clinical but the birthing suites at the hospital we'd chosen - and paid for - are set up to make it feel as much like home as is reasonably possible. The net effect is that you feel like you're in a sci-fi future hotel. The drip that normally triggers things in to action wasn't scheduled to be put in until the following morning but there were other examinations and monitoring to do. Once these were done we were left to watch TV or go to sleep. I only managed to hit the emergency button once by mistake, trying to turn the TV on. There was a sofabed for me to sleep on in addition to Em's hi-tech wonderbed and we both slept on that in the end.

Labour
Early the next morning we met with the obstetrician to get things under way. After a few false starts at 9am a drip was put in Em's arm and almost immediately things began to happen. At 9:05 the first complaints of discomfort were heard and by twenty past, they were painful. From thereon in things moved very quickly. We were told that there would be no real action until around 2pm, not so. My notebook entries look like this:

Drip in 9am
First feelings 9:05
Hurting 9:20
Lower tummy and lower back 9:33
10:10 "Hurts" tears
10:25 Hotpack applied to back
10:40 (entry is blank but we headed for the bathroom at this point).

The reason we went to the bathroom was that Em was feeling a little sick. A little sick turned into a lot sick and eventually to projectile, erupting epic scale sick. We retreated to the shower.

By the time Emily was in the shower I'd taken the subtle signals that thing were moving a little faster than expected. The midwife too was catching on, and the first examination at just after 11am - not due until 2pm - showed that she was almost halfway through the labour. Pain relief was offered in the form of gas and air, which seemed to help no end. Sadly, and much to my disappointment, I wasn't offered any.

I think it was at about this point that I began to feel about as useless as I ever have. Em got on the bed and pretty much stayed there apart for some wriggling to get comfortable. The pace of progress increased if anything. By the time Emily got around to asking for more pain relief we were told that by the time it took effect we would be holding our baby, which was a shame, I could have used a decent opiate at that juncture. The gas was turned up and I still didn't get any.

Pushing and paddle pops

An hour later with both the obstetrician and the midwife now in the room it was time for the last push, so to speak. Violet's actual arrival was quick, there was only about 45 minutes of proper pushing. Emily had been brought ice lollies as a distraction and to help prevent dehydration. As she was obviously unable to hold on to these herself I had become the bearer of iced treats and encouragement. The rhythm of the next three quarters of an hour or so was; ice lolly, gas, push, ice lolly, gas, push. I have never seen anyone look as distressed as Em did when she was asked to push without the gas. "But, why...?!".

Violet's final arrival was quick. Immediate checks were made and her feet tickled to get her to cry. On the birth details under resuscitation measures the words 'tickled feet' are preserved forever.

It's difficult to watch someone you love in pain and know that your total capacity to help is waving flavoured ice on a stick at them and saying 'nearly there', and that you've already reached that point. I think that's why the obstetrician tries to get the dad involved towards the end of the birth. When Violet made her way into the world I was told that I was going to help lift her up to Emily. That was a profound reality jolt. For the last 4 and three quarter hours I'd been just fetching and carrying, offering words of encouragement when needed, remaining calm and feeling feeble. Really I was still getting used to the idea of fatherhood (these things take a little time to get through to me). To be offered a seconds old crying baby covered in warm slippery gunge and told that I would have to lift her snapped me back to the moment like I'd been slapped. Emily looked flat-out astonished when given Violet, it clearly too a moment to sink in.

The obstetrician is a no nonsense old-school bow tie wearing Aussie who takes great pride in his work and is obviously still fascinated by the whole process. We knew that he would need to check the placenta and the amniotic sac, we didn't think he'd try to show us it in all it's gory detail. Still standing at the end of the bed he held it up for us to look at, muttering things like, 'very healthy' and prompting us to come and have a closer look. The whole sequence was one of comic oddity. Professional pride can be taken too far.

After a short while Violet was taken to be weighed, measured and tidied up and was brought back professionally swaddled. She was given to me to hold whilst Em was tended to. I sat for about the next half hour staring at my daughter, her wrapped, me rapt.