...the art of peeing...

...so my last gynae appointment was a real laugh, for anyone who has
had a baby you'll know that every gynae appointment, which happens
4 weekly, you start off by having to weeeee in a tiny plastic container
with a little lid.

well during your first few visits this is challenging enough as you can
check the ever-elusive 'flow' and catch the weeeee by shifting the tiny
container to catch your golden bounty. i applaud you if you can do this
without getting weeeee all over your hands!

then, after washing your hands and your precious little sample, and drying
it off ever so carefully, you get to carry this and hand over a luke warm
container of weeeee to the poor person who has to test it.

now...bring on the 3rd trimester, gynae appointment as scheduled, although
you're past the open your legs and say aaaaah, internal scans, and you've
progressed to the ice cold goop on your belly, external scan, you still like to
give yourself a number one with the your husbands face razor (haha) just in
case emergency strikes and your gynae has to go internal.

however, your vaJJ is no longer clearly visible, if you're lucky, you can shift
your belly everso slightly to the side and mmmmmaybe catch a glimpse of her,
so shaving is now left to your husband. no jp, it doesn't have to be a work of art,
just tidy it up and keep it looking respectable!!!

now bring on the actual appointment, smile, greet, collect your teeeeny tiny
plastic container, and here we go, shit, i can hear it but i can't see a damn thing,
so you shuffling that container around frantically attempting to catch eratic
ever-moving weeeee, you know you're on the mark when the pitch of the splash
changes, but just as you're about to celebrate the flow whips into another direction
and f@&*^%k you're back to square one.

so after 5 min in the loo, and a bout of hysterical laughter, i emerge, somewhat
triumphant, with a teaspoonful of weeeee in my little container! whoop whooop!...

...in no particular order...

...this is how you fall pregnant in bali...

...it's aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

...girl! so after weeks of not being able to buy pink or blue, just grey and bleeegh beige,

and what feels like an eternity of feeling like shit, i finally know for 100% sure

(confirmed by the second appointment, definately 3 little stripes) that we are having

another little girl. aaaah for the boy i'll never have but yay for my new little girl.

after much deliberation, (well jp thinks so, actually i'd chosen the name when i fell pregnant

with siena already, in the event that i had another girl) we have decided on the name mila.

siena however has decided on the name peaches, and turns a deaf ear to anything else,

she refers to her baby sister as peaches, and that's that!!! any mention of mila and she's

like huh, who? so mila 'peaches' arpesella will come into the world sometime between

new years eve (terrible timing i know) and the 3rd of jan 2012.

i am determined not to have her in 2011, but we'll see how that turns out for me! i have

visions of the world celebrating either christmas or new years and me lying in a

hospital bed with miserable nurses, trying to appear chirpy and in the christmas spirit,

flitting around me while my family celebrates our usual chaotic christmas 'experience'

without me. it's a crazy day of 8 grandkids playing/fighting/screaming, trying to

coordinate food for them and that the moms, dads and grandparents eat together.

did i mention all the kids are under 4 and a half!, it's freaking crazy but it's christmas,

and i love it!

so here's to keeping my legs closed, and having a crazy busy christmas day, and especially

to my 'almost didn't have you' second child...

how wonderful life is, now that you're in the world ~mommy...

...my siena's beautiful eyes...

...maybe i have my 'in absolute love with my child' goggles on 

but i think that siena has theeeeeee most beautiful brown eyes that i've ever seen.

so much so that i couldn't help doing an acrylic on canvas for above my bed...

...aaaaaaaah, such a well trained hubby....

...birthday pancakes in bed at 6am, this is what is possible

after 15 years of intense training, and it happens on mothersday

and our anniversary tooooooo!

cooked and prepared by jp and served by my little siena,

with a handmade birthday card too, still smiling...

...an ode to morning sickness...

...i hate you i hate you i fucking hate you...

…amazing, the things I brought back from bali…

so here I am back in my little bubble of reality that is my life, thinking back just over a month, of cocktails and extra large king size beds, oh take me back! on the bright side, seems I brought back more than just shoes, and clothes and trinkets and my voluptuous bali belly, seems those cocktails and extra large king size bed sent me home with a plus one! yaaaaaaaaaaaaay, found out a little while ago that our little family of three is soon gonna be a slightly bigger little family of four. very excited, and feeling pretty crappy most days, but it’s all good and all worth it. haven’t vomited on any students yet, but who knows, it’s early days.

so here we go again, got to ask myself if i’m ready for everything that a new baby brings, weeeee, poooooo, vomit, oh god breast feeding, my worst, i’m definitely not one of those mothers who loved the whole breast feeding, nurturing your baby thing, breast feeding with siena was 6 months of me holding my breadth, saying a little pray as I unleashed my piranha child on my swollen, painful nipples. if she would just have latched and stayed latched I may have been able to have kind of enjoyed the experience, but she would latch on for 15 – 45 seconds and then rip off, only to attack my nipple 2 seconds later like a rabid pitbull. aaaah the memories, my nipples just inverted just thinking about it.

but then there are those moments, the ones where you can watch them sleeping for hours, or they look up and smile at you, the way i smile at a chocolate brownie, pure happiness, and that first giggle, hug and when they run up to you and call you mommy, oh hell, bring on the nausea, the sleepless nights and even the breast feeding, i’m ready…'

...over-slept, over-massaged, over-ate, and over-cocktailed...

...aaaaaaaaah bali, i so highly recommend a tropical island second honeymoon with your husband.

before you know it you're in the rut of daily routine, work, kids, family, friends, life, and the next time you look, and are even aware of the shift, you're totally disconnected from that man you married.

he's driving you nuts, you're driving him nuts, bickering about money, whose turn it is to whatever, what's for dinner, bleh bleh bleh.

you're going to bed early, he's up watching sport, movies or playing f@#$king computer games, morning is a blur of getting the kid ready for school, packing her ballet clothes, tennis shoes, extra warm jacket, feeding the dogs, eating a burned piece of toast on your way out the door, screaming bye i'm late, blowing a kiss, sitting in traffic, only to get to work, sitting in traffic, flying through pick 'n pay for bread, yoghurt, juice and onions, in the door, whose feeding the dogs, the kid, the bedtime routine, throwing some meat on the gasbraai, sitting down to eat in front of the tv just in time for the 2 sometimes 3 shows we watch before i fall asleep on the couch, wake up at the credits, tear myself off the couch, drag myself down the passage, maybe brush my teeth and wash my face, maybe not, back in bed only to wake up and it's tuesday morning, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat! aaaah saturday... all the same minus the traffic and work, but add in soccer matches, friends and family lunches.

so before you know it you're looking at each other and wondering if you may as well be borders in the same house...bring on bali

aaaaaah bliss, sleep late in an extra large king size bed, which feels even bigger minus the 2 dogs and lunatic cat, buffet breakfasts TOGETHER, massages TOGETHER, exploring, shopping, eating, TALKING...un-interupted conversations, about life, dreams, babies, bonds, our next holiday, LAUGHING...this guy i married is pretty funny, and interesting when we're not whining and moaning at each other about crappy house stuff, MISSING our child, actually being away from her long enough to miss her, terribly, but not in the morning when we are sleeping past 5'30 to the unheard of unfathomable 7,8 or even 9am, and of course all the other things you can get up to, minus the kid, plus the king size bed, plus the cocktails, plus the humid tropical sun and warm sensual ocean. yes i really like this person, he's fun to be with, relaxed, happy and whose that in the mirror, she's funny too, happy, relaxed oh god that's me!

so yes i highly recommend a tropical island second honeymoon...

...made me think...

...so i went to a movie last night with my friend kelly, it was called 'love and other drugs', and wow what a deep movie, the jist of it is that she (anne hathaway) has parkinson's disease at 26, and he (jake gyllenhaal) a drug sales rep meet and try their best not to fall in love, it's sounds very formulaic but was surprisingly deep and got you thinking about what is important in life...

and it just made me think about everything that i have in my life, a healthy happy daughter, a husband that drives me nuts but I never doubt that he loves me, parents who taught me to be independent, hard working and respectful of others and support me no matter what, an amazing but crazy extended family, a beautiful home in a safe area, a huge group of friends with an interesting ever changing dynamic but who all have each others best interest at heart, a job that makes me happy with people that respect me, food in my fridge, a positive bank balance well except for my bond...

and i wake up every morning and without consciously deciding to, i worry about having more stuff, a pool, a bigger entertainment area, an extra fridge, new boots, another overseas holiday and more money. more money to save, more money to buy, more money to invest, more more more...

what i don't wake up an think, is omf i DON'T have to worry about... my baby having a terminal disease, my parents being financially dependent, my marriage being in trouble, my home being repossessed, having no friends to share my life with, being unemployed, being emotionally damaged from abuse, being uneducated, feeling hopeless...

...i think from now on, as much as i can, i'm gonna wake up in the morning and just be grateful, grateful for what i do have and what i don't have to worry about. enjoy today, it's like i keep waiting for the next thing before i'll be happy or life will really begin, wake fucking up, life is today, here, now...smile...

...so, not pregnant, woooohooo...

...never thought those words would ever come out of me in any format,
but as far as my master plan goes i guess that's what i wanted. the scary thing
is, is that there was a very slight chance that i was, talk about russian rolette,
i knew i shouldn't and technically it was a day too late but you just can never
know how fast those little buggers (pg13) can swim. not that i was secretly kind of
hoping or anything!!! but alas that crimson bitch reared her ugly head.

 so my blog heading should've have read
...guess what chantelle found in her knickers this morning...

ha ha, not a kitty! that was my kitty sushi by the way, nestled in jp's
undies while he was sitting on the thrown. I rescued her from an spca
type place. since i grew up with cats and have been catless for the past
4 years, i desperately longed to be love/hated by a kitty once more.
so after a lot of negotiating with jp, and him saying no! i emailed EVERY
shelter and breeder of siamese kitties in the western cape, and then politely
phoned jp to tell him my kitty was ready and waiting for me, and then i still
had the cheek to get him to pick me up from work and drive me to bellville
to fetch her. needless to say, karma's a bitch, sushi loves him/hates me!!!
not even a f!@#$king siamese anyway!!!

so i have officially given her to siena who adores her and carries her around like
a broken rag doll - sushi seems to love it! so be it!...

...what jp found in his underpants this morning...

...don't remember eating that!!!...

...resistance is futile....

...so i started ovulating again today, my body and my mind are at war! for so long i've wanted to start trying for the next baby, and finally the timing is right. jp's on board, settled at work, siena's old enough, ok financially you never think you're ready but otherwise everything is saying yes, yes, yes, go forth and procreate! and i'm saying no! i think i've lost my mind, and at least twice this morning i had to stop myself from joining jp in the shower.

remember all the reasons that this is a good idea, i keep telling myself, read your previous blog entries...and then this obnoxious little voice in the back of my mind chirps up, 'don't believe everything you read!' does that apply to things you wrote yourself, i wonder? damn it! do i have the strength to say no, not now, maybe in two months time! if i can just resist for the next 2 days then i'll be safe until this time next month.

and isn't mother nature such a bitch, she teams your ovulation with this increased hormonal surge which makes resistance seem futile, impossible. well i'm not making any promises, we'll just have to see how the next 48 hours go...think cocktails in bali, think shellfish and sushi and cocktails, oh and think cocktails in bali...

...!@#$%^, but on the bright side....

...so, impatient as i am, after my last blog entry, i went and bought a pregnancy test, i wasn't going to, i was gonna wait til monday, but then i stopped at this budget centre looking for things for a friends stork party invite, and there was this crappy pharmacy and the next thing i know, i'm buying a crappy pregnancy test in really badly designed packaging. so usually with these tests you gotta use your first morning weeeeeeee, so i happen to wake up at 3am desperate for a weeeeeeee, so not wanting to waste the good stuff, i do the test with one eye open at 3am, and nothing!!! not even the test strip that shows that the test is working??? wtf! so now i'm pissed! so in the morning i scratch through the bin to double check and there is the one line, wtf, so i assume i'm not pregnant, !@#$%^ that crappy test.

now in my misery yesterday, my parents and brother and his wife, jp and i go out for dinner to nonna lina's,(the best italian restaurant in ct) and i decide, !@#$%^ the diet i WANT pasta and tiramisu, DIVINE! so i get on the scale this morning dreading the outcome, and hey! beyond belief i'm down! think maybe i should eat pasta and tiramisu everyday.

so, there it is , or isn't (that crappy test may have been faulty, but i doubt it). so sex will just have to be sex, no counting days, no propping myself up with pillows, no getting my hopes up, two whole months!!! on the even brighter side, it seems i'll be ovulating in bali! woohooooooo a bali baby sounds very exotic and romantic. mmmmmmm does that mean i'll have to think of a balinese name not an italian name...

...life's a bitch and so is my uterus...

...so got my period on thursday, which means i'm most probably not pregnant! so my uterus and i are not on speaking terms, well, unless you call swearing and cursing, speaking terms, cause then i'm speaking, my uterus hasn't dared reply. i feel like boycotting the entire reproductive system from my ovaries all the way down to my, for lack of a better word, vaJJ. guess that would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face. just don't think she should be rewarded for non performance and a substandard attitude, i'm a designer for god's sakes i work to deadlines!!!

so i'll do a pregnancy test on monday, just in case it's the same situation as siena, the 'psuedo period', but alas i've decided that if i am not pregnant, we're gonna wait until april to try again, why you may ask, two reasons, firstly i would prefer to not have a child in nov/dec as children born in the later half of the year statistically struggle emotionally and academically in school, now there's a 50/50 chance they'd get my amazing genes in the brains department, which would render the entire subject mute, but not willing to risk it! secondly then we can live it up in bali, eat drink and be merry, and not have to worry about passing out on the plane either. then the third reason, something to consider if you're thinking of trying for a baby soon, check your medical aid and how much they cover, you can take gap cover for the difference or a hospital insurance policy that pays out cash when you're in hospital, BUT both have a 12 month waiting period til birth!

so, watch this space, maybe it'll be happy unexpected news, in which case i'll spoil my vaJJ for job well done, and to apologise for the swearing, or it'll be the expected one stripe/negative and i may be miserable and sulky for a while.

have an amazing nutella fudge recipe, so if it's negative, a condolence chocolate fudge for my aching heart! maybe a congratulatory chocolate fudge...mmm...either way i eat fudge, i like this plan...

...don't get my hopes up...

so it's tuesday before thursday where i usually well, you know. by today i normally showing the tell tale signs and my breasts are usually super-tender, but nothing yet, could it be...no, let me not get my hopes up just yet...

..and wait...

as i said before, waiting is soooo not my thing, but here i sit ...waiting! it's only been just over a week but i still have minimum of 4 days till i maybe, possibly miss a period, then you've still got to give it a few days to make sure that your body's not just being a bitch and messing with you.

even worse is the fact that with siena, i didn't miss a period, or so i thought (apparently it isn't a real period but something else, your body's first act of revenge i think, or maybe denial), so for two weeks of actually being pregnant i thought i wasn't and went around cursing and swearing under my breath at all the pregnant women who seemed to be parading themselves in front of me, everywhere i went.

so only when i started to feel nauseous the week that i was due to ovulate did it dawn on me to do a test which then showed those glorious 2 pink lines. by then i was 6 weeks. a silent apology to all those pregnant women that i swore about in my head.

so i might get a psuedo period and then have to wait another two weeks before i start getting symptoms. which is gonna drive me insane and probably gonna cost me tons in 'just-in-case' pregnancy tests, 2 for R40 at clicks by the way.

so here i am, still waiting, fighting the urge to do a test just in case, no, i think i'll wait...

say aaaaaaaaaah!

so 2011 is finally here and i start this year on a very exciting note. jp and i have finally agreed on the fact that it is time to make a big sister out of siena. she's 3 and a half now and has started to realise that all her cousins and school friends have got little brothers or sisters, and she tells me daily that she wants a pink girl, not a blue boy, but definitely a pink girl. daddy on the other hand tells me he definitely wants a blue boy, which secretly i want too. but due to the age gap, a girl may be best for my little monkey, so either way i'll be thrilled.

so on thursday i had my first gynae appointment (3 years overdue, but life happens in between) i really love my gynae, she is awesome. after a chat, an internal scan, a pap smear and some blood tests, this body is ready for action. a bit anaemic but nothing an iron sup can't sort out. (note iron can wreak havoc on your regular twice a day routine, so i drink half a tablet daily instead)

it also just happens that i started ovulating on this day so gynae told me to go home and get busy! smsed jp the second i left her office. something along the lines of 'be ready, i'm on my way'.

conveniently jp and i have decided to start eating healthier this year and due to a holiday planned with friends, kelly and nick, in bali in april, we need to get our old beach bodies back! (don't know if i ever had one of those, but having a baby is a really good excuse to why i'm a bit outta shape, nevermind that it has been over 3 years)

jp, has decided to stop drinking and smoking hubblies for 'beach body' reasons but this is great news for baby making reasons too, need those swimmers to be able to swim in a straight line afterall.

so thursday night was fun, spent some time propped up on a pillow, and gynae reckoned to wait a day and then 'get busy' on the saturday too. which was going really well until siena woke up and came through to the bedroom to ask for a milky bottle, jp made it by seconds. 'dad will get it my angel, mommy needs to lie down cause her back is really sore', (couldn't risk gravity robbing me of my chances) jp is also under a strict 'no touching yourself' rule before ovulation week, need those swimmers to be strong and plentiful.

now we wait... i don't do well with waiting! patience and i are barely on speaking terms...