As well as Mothers Day it was my mum's 60th Birthday on Sunday so I had reasons aplenty to celebrate the aceness that is my ma.  I made her a book entitled '60 Things I Love About You Mum (and a few that drive me crazy)', here are a few of those things:

1. That you’ll sit for hours in the dark on a Greek beach, wearing a head torch, all in the name of finishing an epic game of Scrabble.

5. That you introduced us to fine foods at a young age...even if Brie and tonic water was all there was in the fridge.

7. That you give Andy hugs and have always made him welcome and part of the family from the beginning.

8. That you accidentally watch slightly dodgy videos with Andy and both feel mildly uncomfortable.

13. For your love of the sea and how you always look back at least once when leaving it.

14. For how you scan cafes/restaurants/beaches/plazas to find the best spot, not EVER settling for an inferior position and often moving several times to maneuver into that ultimate possie.

15. The way you hold your coffee when you are really, really happy people watching.

16. That you dropped everything even though you had a full lodge and drove to Auckland when you heard Louie was coming.

19. That you were always the last one to go to bed throughout our travels in Nepal, talking and drinking with others long after us kids had gone to bed.

20. That you are considered a MILF by my 27-year-old lezzy mate!

21. That you didn’t know what a MILF was!

22. That you are considerate, kind, practical, smart and very generous.

28.  That no matter where you go and for how long, there will always be coffee making facilities packed in your bag.

37.  That you laughed and forgave me at age 8 for flashing my knickers to the next door neighbor boy, even though his mum was disgusted.

38. For your love of travel, new places and adventure – one of your gifts to us.

39. That you changed my nappy, burped me and got up all through the night to feed me – I get it!

40.  For your belief that waistcoats made out of an old dressing gown were a good idea for the whole family.

45. That you got married in a red mini-dress.

49. For being a little fearful yet always brave.

50. For showing us what a successful marriage looks like.

52. For never putting pressure on us to be anything other than ourselves.

54. That you have a pair of outrageously inappropriate red vinyl heels, just cause everyone should have a pair of outrageously inappropriate red vinyl heels.

56. That you love my favourite book as much as I do.

57.  That you did a belated O.E aged 40 something – Animal Aunts, English Pubs, Combie Vans – before either of your kids had done theirs!

58. That you always work so hard and are so successful at everything you do.

59.  For wanting nothing more than your family around you on your 60th birthday.

60.  For being awesome.

Love you ma x

Happy birthday Louie!  Today you officially graduate into the world as a three month old, you are no longer a sleeping, shitting, crying grub...now you are sleeping, shitting, crying infant!  Although to be fair, you do keep the crying to a minimum, thank you my happy boy.

You LOVE books, it's hilarious, you seem to read along with me and laugh at the punch lines.  And you LOVE your dad playing the guitar to you, totally riveted.

You seem pretty happy staring at your hands in your cot, batting at toys in your bouncy chair or just hanging with your mumma.  Sometimes I worry if your days are too monotonous...are you bored?  I don't know what I expect you to want...a night out with the fellas? But I just want to make sure I'm doing the right things with you, helping you to learn and develop.  After all, you're a graduate now.  What am I supposed to be doing daily with a three month old?

Any clues lovely readers??

Your first sleep in your cot!

You slept for five hours!

Long may it continue little man!


*  it didn't.

We've been looking at houses to buy FOREVER!  We are very annoying people.  We talk about our decision making with all of our friends and family, outlining the pros, the cons, asking for their considered opinion and then the next time we meet we have a whole other idea!  Our nearest and dearest know now that when we exclaim "We're moving to Bluff!"  that there is a high likelihood we have just been entertaining a romantic idea of a lighthouse home and the next proposition we put to them will be a houseboat in Northland.

But finally, we've whittled it down to one town and one smaller town, both in the same area.  We're spending weekends traipsing about with Louie who is amazing and sleeps in between houses, doesn't mind being left in his car seat in strange kitchens while we shoot around prospective homes and lets us know when he REALLY doesn't like a house by his little furrowed brow.  Actually, he always has a little furrowed brow.  No sure things yet but going back this weekend to view 7 homes.  Fingers crossed.

You're loving showers with your dad, you don't even grizzle when he puts your whole head under the water.  And so far no poo-splosions in there!  Although secretly, I'd kind of love it if you did.

You have to have your towel heated or you complain bitterly to management.  And a nice apricot oil massage is appreciated.  You detest getting dressed,  you are happiest in your b-day suit.

Today we went to your third Plunket visit where you passed everything with flying colours - I was pleased to see you are growing  into your big head, you are only in the 75th percentile for large heads now instead of the 90th!  The nurse said you are putting on tons of weight and feeding efficiently, getting bigger and stronger which is easy to see - you are bursting at the seams and starting to look like a member of a boy band wearing tight tees and pants.

And then we had to go and pick up a cot for you because you're almost touching the ends of the bassinet.  Tonight might be the last night you sleep in it, you are in there now, snoring away happily.  Slow down my baby boy, slow down, I want to enjoy every day, every stage of your life and it's already feeling like it's rushing by.

We went to our first SPACE kids session last week and there were 2 week old babies there and I'd forgotten you were that big, forgotten how it was when you could almost curl up your whole body under my chin, when your little eyes were puffy because they were so new.  Now look at you!  You are my little meerkat with your strong neck peering around at everything with a serious, enthralled expression.  Thrashing about if you are held in any position except outward; the best way to see the world (much to your expensive-Manduca-buying mamma's dismay).

Ahhh.  I've heard all the mothers say it and it's true "enjoy it, they grow up so fast".  Flash in the pan, it's all just silver moments of gloriousness and then they're gone, one after another.


xxx

If I'm going to keep at this blog, I need to figure out what I'm going to write about.  To do that I need to figure out what I'm interested in, what moves me, what will keep me writing.  Tricky.

I could use it as an exploration kind of tool, a way of rediscovering 'who I am', what I'm about.  Seems kind of self absorbed.

I could post the trillion kilobyte worth of pics building up of my main man Louie.  Who is interested beside me and The Wrinklys?

I could come across all savvy and cute and highlight the little corners of our lives that I deem blog worthy.

Very tricky.
So.  I'll do all of the above and try to not give a flying fuck about any of it being read.  Or maybe just by one little person, because ultimately I'd like to say to Louie in 10+ years time - or when I deem it appropriate for him to read his mum's swear words - "hey kid, here's some ramblings I kept up with when you were new and we were figuring each other out, when I was falling deeply in awe of you, when I gloated to cyberspace about your 'firsts', posted embarrassing pics of you.  It's also a bit about me and who your old mum is.  And your dad.  Your first house.  What was around you.  I thought you might like to know".

Our baby boy is here and funnily enough, he wasn't a Joe after all!

Louie Coombes was born on the 16th February at 7.27pm weighing a respectable 3.5kg.  He is simply amazing and we are smitten.


A fast, intense labour without drugs - not that I didn't 'call' for them!  So glad he is here and seriously gorgeous, I am so in love.  Andy is too and we can't believe we are now three!

Welcome my beautiful Louie C.

We had a Baby BBQ on Saturday - we pitched it to our mates as the last time we'd see them together without us being mildly manic and covered in baby spew.  They agreed to come.

Hannah was amazing, we had it at her house and she cleaned and cooked and pushed me out of the kitchen the whole time, leaving me to catch up with everyone.   The rest of the in-laws were awesome too, BBQ-ing 70 burgers, cooking fresh snapper etc.  My bro and his family came up, a friend flew in from Berlin that afternoon (not especially for the bbq although I like to think so), my ma managed to take a sneaky day off to drive up and spend a few hours with us...it was pretty special.






Friends brought their favourite books for Baby Coombes and wrote in a book for him, guessing his weight, date/time of birth and his name, which nearly everyone got right seeing as it's the worst kept secret in the world.

So little Joe Henry Coombes, it was a gathering in your honour and a whole lotta love was felt.  You've got some preeetty cool dudes waiting to meet you (although those few that guessed you'd be 15 pounds or named Bullstrode will have to win back your respect).

xxx

Linen is being washed, clothes sorted and names pondered.  It's so nice having this time off to muddle about.  We couldn't really have planned it better, had we planned.  Three weeks off for Xmas break, back to work for three weeks, then off for what I keep telling Andy is my 'retirement'.  Hehehe.

Names are being added to the kitchen blackboard and I glance at them as I wander past to make (more) food.  I'd love feedback, we're totally stuck.

Emx

We made it to past midnight, kissed Dan & Tessa then scuttled out of the Phoenix Foundation gig, home to hot chocolate and biscuits.  We attempted to make new year's resolutions but we must be damn near perfect 'cause nothing came to mind.  There's the usual (get fit-learn more-be kinder-etc) but my heart isn't in it.  Like Tessa said, there's plenty more days in the year to make resolutions, I'm just going to skip it tonight.

2012 is going to be newer than most new years for us.  It's your year.  I'm looking forward to meeting you little one. You were very quiet at the gig, listening very hard.  Hopefully the CD will work just as well when you're here, on the outside, and grumpy.

Happy New Year.  I love you my sweet boy.

Your Ma Emma xxx

It's weird - when we decided* to try and get pregnant, I didn't really think much about it all.  We were really lucky and it happened very quickly so maybe we didn't realise what path we were setting ourselves off on.  It's not like we're young and/or foolish, we're 34/35 and been together for 12 years and we wanted to make a baby but it's all so damn theoretical until that positive test.  And it stays a bit unreal, but on a slowly adjusting scale.

At the ripe old mark of 23 weeks, my body has changed A LOT, little Scooby is kicking, we've got bags of baby stuff accumulating, i'm going to pregnancy yoga (ok, only once), I'm slowly gearing myself up to watch a birth video, we've maybe chosen a name, we're going to start antenatal classes next week and  I've had a couple of outrageously vivid moments of "holy shit!  We're having a baby!"  It's becoming more real for sure.  But then I realise I'll laugh at this post at 39 weeks.  And laugh that I laughed at that post once baby is born.  Reality happens bit by bit and I'm slowly understanding you can't really mentally prepare for anything until you're in it.

* 'decided' being a little strong and possibly not entirely quite as decisive but more like....'we wouldn't...would we?  Maybe we would?  We did!  Wow!....cool.....'