O Happy HAPPY Day!

For many reasons!!!

1) I CAN NOW OFFICIALLY CARRY EMILY!! This is SOOOOoooo amazingly good for me. Oh my! For nearly 8 months I have not been able to lift or carry her - first becuase of the pregnancy and then as I recovered from the s-section. BUT NOW I CAN!!! We have been for a rainwalk (Emily in her gumboots and raincoat!), to the swings, for a SWIM!.... I have put her to bed and gotten her up, lifting her in and out of the cot myself. Woo hoo! The list of marvellous things we can do together goes on and on -- e.g. I can now take her in a taxi somewhere on my own, go to nursery together at church... and just plain SWING HER IN THE AIR whenever I like!!! (mind, after 8 months of not carrying anything heavier than a newborn, lifting Em is quite the workout :-)

2) Jemima went SEVEN HOURS between feeds! Yes! You heard that right! The girl who was last week feeding every 1-2 hours has been on a three hourly feeding schedule. I waking her in the night to continue this but last night we let her sleep and WOW - I was able to sleep most of that myself (I had to wake to pump tho) and it felt AMAZING to get so much rest!!

3) Today we went to Jilly's place and played with M and E. It was SO much fun. I have really missed Jill who has been a constant source of encouragement to me here in this city. And Emily had a BALL playing with the girls.

4) The wonderful man of our house has been giving me lovely FOOT MASSAGES in the evenings at the end of his own stressful workdays. What a husband!!
All things to be grateful for. Deeply grateful!

Jon & Em

Our precious, precious firstborn. What a dear face!

Emily carried this tube of Mum's lipgloss around ALL day today. Here she is putting some on Dad! :-)

Jon and Emi have such a lovely relationship. When he comes home for lunch or after work, Emily's whole body jumps to attention... her eyes go as wide as saucers, her little mouth makes a perfect 'o', her eyebrows disappear into her hairline and she lets out an incredibly loud "DAAAAAADAAAAAA!" then runs her adorable toddle to the gate at the bottom of the stairs and in her excitement forgets she has to move out of the way for the gate to open and Dada to come through. She throws herself into his arms and they spend the next 10-15 minutes running through the house, flopping on the mattress on the floor, being thrown in the air, dancing to praise music, playing with dolls.... its just so great to see. They both wear massive smiles and the whole time is punctuated by belly laughs and more delighted squeals from Emily. Then when its time for 'wind-down' in Emi's bedroom, we pray with her and read the Bible together and then Jon stays up there to pray a blessing over her and have special cuddles and engage in secret bedtime rituals like tracing the letters of Emily's name on her bedroom door and putting Bear, Dolly and Baby into bed (oops, now they aren't secrets!!). Emily always manages a trip downstairs again to 'kiss baby goodnight'. She loves her little sister! I love, love, LOVE seeing Jon and Em together!!!

(Not so) Happy Fathers Day

Hm. Well, there's the (small) consolation that we celebrated the American Fathers Day in Bangkok already. I knew the Aussie one was this Sunday but have had NO energy to put ANY effort into ANY sort of celebratory activity. Poor Jon! Two things make it a bit easier for him not to feel to glum: 1) he thinks Fathers Day is overrated (along with Valentines Day and the like) and 2) no one else we've come across in this city has said anything about the Aussie Fathers Day. You'd never know it was happening if it wasn't in your diary! Besides, its been a pretty hard day. We left the service REALLY early today -- Jemima was a bit inconsolable so I was in the lobby with her, and Emily was having an extended tantrum so Jon took her for a walk. So our bags were sitting in the service all on their lonesome and there just didn't seem any point staying. Sunday is actually the LEAST relaxing day of the week for us. Sad, ey?

One Month Today!

Jemima Elizabeth is ONE MONTH TODAY :-) We're attempting to put her on a 3 hourly feeding cycle to try to bring some order to her otherwise 1, 2, 3 or (rarely) 4 hourly meals (or snacks, as they most often are!). Its quite frowned upon by many in this day and age to NOT demand feed, but breastfeeding a baby every 1-2 hours (for an hour each time!) is not sustainable even for a mother in peak physical condition (which I sadly am most certainly not).

Its tough being gorgeous

Today is National Day. Thinking the streets would be pretty quiet with so many people travelling back to the countryside to be with family, Jon took Emily for a walk around Hoan Kiem Lake. We misjudged. There were MANY people and they mobbed poor Em! We've been cringing lately at her newly developed art of SCREECHING at people who get too close in an attempt to adore her, but it would seem her noisy rebuff sometimes comes in handy :-)

Getting Out in the Heat!

Today we went looking for the playgroup that meets in our city. When we arrived at the place it was supposed to be, there was not an English-speaking child to be seen! Instead, we walked in on a local kids concert. Fun! We watched some kids dancing and Emily had a bop to the VERY loud music. Mum and Jemima sweated it out with a baby carrier between them while Mrs Thom got even sweaty-er pushing Emily on the swings.

Fish!

Today we ventured out into the noisy, smelly, sweaty, crazy, wonderful streets of our city. Why? To buy FISH! But also for the fun of it :-) We dodged scrawny dogs, kittens in a cage outside a streetside restaurant (and were asked if we were needing some breakfast when they spotted us looking!), fresh meat in baskets sitting on the ground (getting less fresh by the moment), animal droppings, motorbikes (moving and parked) and many men and women thoroughly disapproving of me having a baby less than three months out of doors (good thing we didn't tell them she's not even ONE month yet!). We eventually found our fish and brought them home to their new abode in our fish tank. Yay!