Last Post from Collingwood

Tis with heavy heart I write my last post from Collingwood.
Tomorrow we move to new digs in Thornbury. I'm trying to be positive about the new house, but I can't help feeling really really sad. I get sentimental about every house I live in, but this one is different.
This year I have a new son. But I have lost my job, my freedom and the chance to do a lot of the things that I love more than anything.
This time last year I was an entertainment journalist who lived in Collingwood and loved movies, music and dining out. This year I'm a stay-at-home mother and freelance journalist, who has been to the movies three times (Dig!, Wallace and Gromit, Star Wars) and seen only a handful of concerts. Eating out? Nup, unless you count scoffing down a bar meal at the local pub.
But living close to my friends, family and fun stuff at least made losing everything else kind of tolerable. I couldn't go to movie premieres and the Logies anymore, but hey, at least Ari and I could walk the wonderful streets of Fitzroy and Collingwood every day.
So losing this house is like kissing goodbye to the last shred of my former self. And I think I've got a right to be sad about that.
So farewell our lovely inner-city terrace. Hello suburbia.

On the move

The Danaflavs are on the move.
We've rented a lovely 3BR house in Thornbury and move in next Saturday - which is why I haven't blogged for ages (we're up to our ears packing boxes at the moment).
Our new house has almost everything we want. I say almost because the location is not nearly as exciting as Collingwood.
But it is a lovely home with three bedrooms, loads of storage, a nice kitchen, air con, ducted heating, a neat backyard and a garden shed (which has thrilled Rob no end).
Still, our hearts are heavy. As Rob says, we are moving from a good house in a great location to a great house in a good location.
Thornbury is hardly Caroline Springs or Ringwood. But we have proudly called ourselves Collingwood residents for nearly four years and we adore the suburb.
Besides having great shops, great pubs, great friends and fantastic facilities all within walking distance, we love the character of the place. It's a little bit nuts and the people are diverse.
I will miss so much about living here.
Will Ari be the Little Prince of Thornbury now? It doesn't have the same ring somehow...

My mummy loves me (and Ray...)

I Like Turtles

I've got more hair than you - and I can stand up...

New house

We are flat out house hunting at the moment and it seems what we want just isn't out there.
We don't think we're asking too much, but it seems our list of criteria is too picky.
Our new rental house must have:

• 3BRs
• Be somewhere in Northcote, Thornbury, Carlton, Clifton Hill, Coburg, Fitzroy, Fitzroy North or Abbotsford.
• Have a little backyard.
• Have a shed/garage/somewhere to park a car.
• Not be $500 a week to rent.
• Have built-in robes.
• Not be a dump.
• Be close to public transport.
  

We didn't think this would be that hard, but it seems we've once again set ourselves the Impossible Dream.
The hardest part of all this is that we know we're leaving behind a fantastic house.
We've lived in our lovely Collingwood terrace for nearly 4 years and it's been such a wonderful place.
In this house Rob and I have gotten married, had our son, danced drunkenly with friends and basically lived some of the best years of our lives. It has THE best kitchen in the history of the world. Our lounge has a floor to ceiling window with the best and biggest tree in Collingwood outside.
We can walk 5 minutes to a train or tram, 10 minutes to a supermarket, 10 minutes to Brunswick St, 10 minutes to the river and Dight's Falls. All our favourite pubs are within a 15 minute walk. So is our beloved hairdresser Adrian and all the hospitals we could possibly want.
Our local shopping strip is Smith St and along with having some fantastic shops (Ari is dressed almost exclusively by TSL), the street is so wonderfully strange and its inhabitants even stranger. Where else could you amble down and encounter prostitutes, drunks, drug addicts, dealers, trendy rock chicks, old ladies, buskers, mums wheeling prams and hip young blokes all in the one place?
I swear I would have gone INSANE if I didn't live here while Ari was a little baby - I can't imagine wheeling a pram around some sort of outer-suburban wasteland of blandness (and I know what that is - I've lived in North Balwyn).
In the early days when I was feeling mighty low, little things like a browse through Kinki Gerlinki, or a piece of hedgehog from the lovely milk bar in Gold St would give me a lift.
I know people in my neighbourhood. I can ring another mum and be down having coffee with them 10 minutes later. I often take Ari to a tiny grassed park on our corner where we watch the world go by and the friendly postie stops for a chat. One of our best friends lives a street away. My sister is only a 10 minute drive from here.
But of course, this place has its drawbacks. It has no shed/garage. It only has 2BRs and we suddenly need 3. Junkies shoot up in our alley. We've lived with it all this time, but it's never a nice feeling when you hear them doing it only metres from where you're standing. Even worse, they leave their syringes everywhere, the bastards.
Our neighbour's dog barks like fury. Our new neighbours over the back have kept us awake with several LOUD parties (we're pretty tolerant, but we're talking house-shakin' loud here).
So if anyone out there knows of a house - please let us know! Otherwise, the search continues...

Wanderin' boy

It's funny how a baby's developmental successes can bite you on the bum.
We waited for teeth - and two little choppers came through. Then Ari started using those choppers on my breasts (for those of you who've never experienced this wonderful phenomenon, it's like someone sticking needles into your nipple. Not fun).
Similarly, Ari's rolling over was hailed as a great achievement. Now the little blighter is rolling over in his cot, day and night. It's a pain in the proverbial, to put it mildly.
Ari rarely wakes in the night these days, but now that he's a little cot wanderer, he's waking up once, maybe twice a night.
Last night he woke at 11pm when he hit is head on the top of the cot after moving his way up there (goodness knows how he did it, Rob and I still can't work it out). Then around 4am he had flipped over onto his tummy and called out for us because, just like a little turtle, he couldn't get back.
Luckily (well, so far) we just give him his dummy and he goes back to sleep.
But it raises an interesting question. How do you deal with a rolly baby? I've heard of all sorts of cot bumpers and special sheets to keep them on their backs, but I suppose eventually Ari has to learn how to sleep in all sorts of positions. And can you ever really stop them moving around?
This brought to mind a visit to a colleague of Rob's last year. It was evening, so we poked our heads around his childrens' bedroom door to see his little girl curled up, almost face down with her bum in the air...in the corner of the cot!
I guess kids are resilient little things and sometimes we should just leave them be.

Baby Stuff I Hate

In the vast world of baby products, there's the wonderful, the useless and the downright annoying. But there's a couple of things I've come across that particularly get my goat:
1. Baby hands and feet plaster casts (pictured). Now these little things are marketed as a loving reminder of when your tike was a wee tot. I'm sorry, but to me these are hideous, almost morbid ornaments that belong either a) in a funeral parlour, or b) in some sort of crazed art installation. They just look AWFUL. If I were a small child, I'd be frightened of them - they look like something Freddie Kruger whipped up at the local Plaster Fun House.
2. Baby slogan t-shirts. I'm all for cool t-shirts. Hell, I just ordered a couple of them for Ari from the US. Rob and I regularly frequent an ace t-shirt website to buy original t-shirts for ourselves.
But cool (in my humble opinion) is NOT some lame attempt at a "baby joke". For example: Boo Hoo, It's All About Me, Sleep Is For The Weak, AB/CD, Kid Vicious, you get the idea. It's soooo funny....NOT!

Can a stroller change your life?

Yes, it can.
We bought a stroller on Sunday and it's already made life so much easier.
As much as our 3-wheeler is a great pram, it was getting very heavy with Ari in it and even folded up I could barely lift it into our car.
If anyone's hunting for a stroller, I can't recommend the Maclaren Quest (pictured) enough. Yes it was expensive, compared to other brands, but it's well made, really light (I can carry it with one hand) and you can practically push it with one finger (a godsend for me, who was forever trying to steer the giant pram with one hand and talk on the mobile phone on the other).
Today Ari and I went to a fashion parade at the GPO and it was an absolute dream - we jumped on trains, zipped through crowds and even went down some stairs - I could never have done that with the old pram.
The other big life-changing thing is bottle feeding. I know I've already talked about this, but it's made going out with Ari so much easier, which I never really expected.
Unlike most mums, I've actually found it easier to bottle feed when out and about than breastfeed, as Ari was such a wrigglebot on the breast and would take AGES to feed, if at all.
Today we just ducked into Myer's parents room, took out a bottle and away we went. In and out in 10 minutes...a dream!

Weaning: Day 2

So far the weaning is going well. Remarkably well, in fact.
Ari took 4 bottles yesterday without a wimper, a cry or even a protest.
I guess with all that bottle/breastfeeding going on, the poor little dude just wanted the bottle after all.
And he slept through last night until 5.30am, when we put his dummy in, and he went right back to sleep until 7am. Hooray!
Now I'm trying to come to terms with the intricacies of bottle feeding - I suddenly have to institute a regime of bottle washing, sterilising and kettle boiling. It's a bit more work than breastfeeding, of course, but it's quite a small sacrifice to make given the impact it will have on our lives.
Lots of things will change - some small, some big.
The biggest one is that Rob (or anyone) will be able to look after Ari for a whole day (and night!) if I/we want some time off. I won't have to rush back to him every 4 hours.
It means I can drink alcohol without worry for the first time in 16 months. Yes, I've drunk the odd beer or wine in that time, but can now have three or four glasses instead of one or two.
It means I can wear an underwire bra again. Women reading this will understand how significant this is. I can wear pretty bras again, instead of dowdy maternity ones.
It means I can feed Ari in full public view instead of ducking off to the car or a "parents room". Unfortunately Ari never took to feeding in public that well. While other mums were discreetly feeding their babies without a hint of breast showing, I struggled with a squirmy boy who always wanted to see what was going on around him, subsequently flashing my boobs to half of Melbourne. It wasn't fun.
It means I can go back to work (I was terrified Ari wouldn't take a bottle by the time my maternity leave was up).
It means no more boob biting (thank goodness).
But, of course, while there are huge plusses, there are a few drawbacks too. Breastfeeding was comfort on tap. It was lovely knowing at any time I could calm Ari down with a breastfeed.
Breastmilk is portable, free and the best thing for a baby, without a doubt. It's also just the right temperature.
And today as I packed away my breastfeeding pillow I had a hint of sadness. Breastfeeding is a lovely feeling. Ari and I won't ever sit snuggled up together watching the sun come up while he feeds. I won't feel his little hand touch my face contentedly as he drinks.