In the blink of an eye

Dear Elijah,
                   a week ago today we celebrated your 3rd birthday, I cannot believe 3 years has passed since your frightening entry into this world. I cannot imagine a life without you in it and can barely remember life as it was before you came. Its like you have always been here.  Wow, 3! You are certainly not a baby anymore, you are a real little boy. You continue to amaze me, just as you have done every day since your birth. You speak very well, have done for a while now. At your last assessment at the Mater they reported you as having exceptional communication skills - not bad for a little boy born at 28 weeks! You sing songs, and recite pages from your favourite stories. You are also fully toilet trained, yay no more nappies. Another thing i dreaded but you took to like a duck to water.
This year has seen big changes in your little world. I had to return to work, only part time, but it means you now go to daycare. You have handled these changes like a superstar. The first couple weeks you were harder at pick up time than you were at drop off. You didn't want to come home!  You hit a little bump in the road last week when you realised it was a permanent thing, but touch wood, this week you were back on track. So many nights I couldn't sleep worrying about how you would cope. I was 97% sure you would be fine, but there is always the small percent of what if's. What if you changed, what if you were scared, or lonely, or bullied. But your teachers are great and I really think I made the best choice with the centre I chose for you. You especially love Miss Jean.
You still love reading and singing. Now whenever you hear music on TV you yell out to me to come and dance. Boy do you have some moves! You can count up to 20 and only leave out 15 for some reason. You recognise lots of letters and numbers.
You are such a funny, smart, handsome little boy. I often look at you and just cannot comprehend that this amazing little creature came from my body- we  created you! I still tear up when I look at you, I wonder if this will ever pass?  I think though the thing I love most about you (apart from EVERYTHING) is that you are so loving. Often out of nowhere you will just come up to me for a nuggle and you are not too stingy to hand out lots of kisses, and when I say I love you, even if its the thousandth time that day, you still say i love you too. You love everyone, and everyone cant help but fall in love with you. The day you were born I didn't even want to think of the future, I just had to pray you would survive day by day. Never could I have imagined how you would grow and how I could manage to  love you more every day. I love you to the moon and back Monkey Moo, happy 3rd birthday

You at birth



you at 3



The day I got Stuck in a Dress

So I thought, rather unselfishly, that I would share a story with you about the time I got stuck in a dress. Yes you read correctly. I got stuck in a dress. Now I know you can get stuck in a lift, up a tree, can even be stuck up,  but I wonder how many of you have ever been stuck in a dress.

It all started like any other day. Thought I would do a spot of shopping (this was BC, when I could actually take the time to try things on in shops rather than doing a quick scan of the shop from the entry, zooming in on the thing that most looks like it will a)  fit  b) be comfortable and not show food stains  c) fit my much lower budget, before buying it to try on at home and usually return on the next seek and find mission)  Anyways, I digress. So I found this really nice summer white dress. Now I had also had time BC to work on a tan, so thought, wow how lovely would white look with my tan. Bingo! Off to the change rooms I prance, feeling quietly confident that I was onto a winner. So I slip dress over head. There is a zip but it looks like it will go on without having to undo the zip- which is a back fastening zip so a pain to do up on your own. Therein lay my fatal mistake (A good time to point out here that I seem to have been born with a distinct inability to judge anything measurement related. Take for example- parking. I have been known to slam on my brakes giving passengers whipkash as I think I am about to hit car in front. Upon getting out of car I see there is room enough between both cars to park a B Double!) . Dress slides over upstretched arms- check. Dress continues to slide nicely over head- check, a bit of a pull and it slides nicely over bust- check. Hmmm starting to feel some resistance, maybe I will take it off an undo the zip after all. 'Oh no you wont, smug tryer onner of clothes' . With arms still upstretched (reaching for roof- just to help with the visuals) head buried in fabric, bust covered in dress, rest of pasty, cellulite-y body hideously exposed (and no I was not wearing my best, 'in case of emergency you will want to be seen in these/Victorias Secret type ' underwear) I realised the dress was not moving, not up and not down. I shimmied and shook and wriggled and grunted. (God only knows what other dressing room patrons were thinking at this stage). But the dress would to move. Now if My arms had not been stuck in upstretched position, maybe dress removal would have been easier. I tried for ages, panic and sheer desperation mounting with every passing second. What was I going to do?? I contemplated just busting out of the dress and wasting a big amount on a wrecked dress, i contemplated sticking upstretched arms and stuck head out of curtain and asking assistant for help and risking her seeing my unsightly, bad undies clad body in all its spotlighted glory, I contemplated slashing my wrists with the stuck zipper. I said prayers to God, Allah, Jehovah and any other mystical being who may have been in the vicinity. I could feels tears prickling my squashed eyes. When all of a sudden I felt a bit of movement. HALLE- freaking- LUJAH-  cue heavenly choir of angels singing!!! I was free of the stupid, ugly hideous dress, with no damage to dress but some major red marking to my upper arms, face and head.  And no in case you are wondering- I didn’t buy the dress. Lol.

My mum still reminds me of this every time I step foot in a dressing room amid gales of laughter. And I can laugh about it now.... but it took a long time to get past the horror of being stuck in a dress.