Wow, it's been a long time! But thanks to the fabulous professional development program at my work, here I am posting again and this counts as work!

Hmm, let me think about what's been happening... I'm pretty sure that it's been about a year since I've last been here!

So I now have a beautiful 13-month-old daughter who is an absolute delight! I spend two days a week working back at my old job but instead of teaching English, I'm now in the Christian Ministry department teaching Christian Development (which is effectively Scripture) and I love it! The other three week days I spend with my lovely little girl - reading her stories, playing with her toys with her and chasing her around our back garden as she chases our six chickens! Oh, and of course changing nappies, feeding her and trying to get her to sleep.

Just in the last few months I've managed to find enough headspace to start reading again and, in terms of fiction, I've thoroughly enjoyed Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero, David Malouf's Ransom, something else which I've totally forgotten and Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated. The non-fictions have all been christian books and a little bit topical but I can't remember any authors: A Mother's Heart, Girls, Five Love Languages of Children, oh, and, Deep Justice For A Broken World, which I've found really confronting, challenging and hopefully it'll turn out to be life-changing.

In other news, I'm actually expecting my second baby in early February next year (though I am seriously beginning to look as though this baby is due any minute!) and we are very excited to be becoming a family of four! They'll be nearly seventeen months apart, which is bound to be character building...

One interesting thing about this little unborn one is that it's going to be born with a bi-lateral cleft lip. That bit of news has led to quite a journey for us as we've had to endure quite a few tests to determine whether or not this cleft was a sign of something much more significant and terrible. As it turns out, we have no indication of anything significant or terrible but we have learnt that we have a funny little genetic mutation in the family! I won't go into the details but it may just be that on top of its cleft lip, our little one may also have some webbing between its fingers and toes and will very likely have some little bumps on the inside of its lower lip. It'll have to have some surgery, possibly as early as six weeks of age. Poor little chap/ette! (We've chosen not to find out whether it's a boy or a girl. We didn't know last time so it doesn't feel right to find out this time!) Anyway, we're so delighted that we've been blessed with not just one fabulous little person but two and all of these things are completely fixable, so praise God!

Aaanyway, I think I've exhausted my blogging potential for today but who knows, maybe this pd session has opened the floodgates for more blogging in the near future?? We'll see!

At least Chaucer’s mother believed he was beautiful …


… although even she had to admit he was a tad ill-proportioned.

Have reduced blogging to an occasional 140 characters over at http://twitter.com/fiveforsilver

Made Me Glad



There's more to say, but this encapsulates it for now and was the song of my head and heart all throughout her birth:

I will bless the Lord forever,
I will trust Him at all times.
He has delivered me from all fear,
He has set my feet upon a rock.

I will not be moved,
And I'll say of the Lord:
You are my shield, my strength,
My portion, deliverer,
My shelter, strong tower,
My very present help in time of need.

Whom have I in heaven but You?
There's none I desire beside You.

You have made me glad,
And I'll say of the Lord:
You are my shield, my strength,
My portion, deliverer,
My shelter, strong tower,
My very present help in time of need.

Miriam Webster

Trying not to get too cranky…


Baby was initially due on the 4th, technically due on the 8th, possibly due on the 12th. It is the 14th - still no baby. If you're my facebook friend, I'm looking for guesses on the gender and date/arrival time of the baby - come and play!

Between us we have spilt five large drinks rather impressively all over various areas of the house. I've hit the carpet (twice) and the microwave. Jon hit the kitchen bench, with Berocca no less, and then knocked my enormous glass of water over the printer and a few power boards. It has been an eventful morning yet we've all escaped electrocution.

The baby is jiggling around pretty constantly. I think when it's older it will stand to attention when it hears the theme tune of The West Wing. It's heard it plenty of times by now.

Nothing more to report.

The grace, favour and faithfulness of God, the love and commitment of prayerful friends and the wonder and mystery of acupuncture!


I know I didn’t post yesterday and some of you probably thought I’d gone into labour. Well, no. I realise that Jon’s post this morning would have done nothing to alleviate anyone’s curiosity but apparently that is a picture of a real KGB shoe-phone so I hope that you’re not complaining!

Thursday night was interesting – about 12 hours of contractions that ended up sputtering to a halt in the morning on Friday. Then I went to see the world’s best acupuncturist, Emma. I love this girl and have been seeing her since way back in January when I was so laid-low with what is laughably termed “morning sickness” that she said I looked like I had food poisoning. Anyway, on Friday morning she stuck me full of needles, as she is want to do. I’d seen her on Monday morning, but that was before I found out that the baby was posterior. I’d seen her on Wednesday when she started the attempt to turn the child around (yep, I’ve had a bit of Gloria Estefan stuck in my head this week, now you can experience the same joy) which mainly seems to focus on the corner of the little toe-nail – she’d even given me some little acupressure sticky things to keep on my little toes to try and bring the turn about! Yet it wasn’t until Friday, when I was sitting backwards on a chair, leaning forward over a pillow on the bed/table/thing with little needles in my neck, back and all over my shins and ankles, and of course, the little toes that I felt the most amazing thing.

Just before she’d started the treatment, I’d got her to feel my stomach and we’d both laughed about how we could feel this little baby’s legs all folded up at the top of my (wide-load) abdomen. Ten minutes into the treatment, while I was just in the little room by myself and Emma was seeing another patient, I felt the baby’s head spin. I didn’t make a song and dance about it at the time, I actually just thought that I must have imagined it and put it out of my mind, but when I walked out of the treatment room and into her little office, I felt my belly and instead of the folded up little legs, what could I feel instead? A bony little spine running dead centre down the middle of my belly! I got her to feel it too and we were both so excited – the baby had turned within the hour I’d spent in her clinic! I called Jon straight away and he ever so wisely advised me to go for a bit of a walk before I got in the car to see if I could help the baby’s head to engage while it was in a good spot.

Later that afternoon I had a bit of a minor panic. I’ve been so used to feeling and seeing these grandiose can-can style kicks out the front of my stomach that suddenly I had no sense of whether or not the baby was moving at all. I called my fabulous midwife and she told me to come in so she could check me out. When I got there she confirmed that yes, the baby had turned and we heard its little heart beating – all is well! I’m a bit better now at knowing what to look for with the baby’s movements and though they’re different to what they were, they’re still pretty unmistakable – poor little bugger has run almost completely out of room and the area towards my back obviously isn’t quite as flexible or stretchy as the area towards my front (thank goodness!)

Anyway, I know that so many friends were praying for us, in Sydney and in so many other parts of the world and we are so grateful. But please don’t stop praying! The baby may have turned but it still has to be born and that will be a bit of a bigger deal I imagine! We have some fairly good indications that labour will hopefully be starting soon but I won’t go into details – and who knows, it still could be another week!

For those of you who were wondering, my fake designer bag does look incredibly fake, but I’d never heard of the designer before, so I’m not fazed, I'd probably struggle to pick a real one, and it is totally awesome. No doubt you’ll see me sporting it around the place sometime soon and you can admire the six regular compartments and clever umbrella/drink bottle compartment.

And now for something completely different…

Toby: Of course I wrote a concession. You want to tempt the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?
Sam: No
Toby: Then go outside, turn around three times, and spit. What the hell is the matter with you?
Sam: It's like 25 degrees outside. . . . (Josh enters.) Toby wrote a concession speech.
Josh: Of course, he wrote a concession speech. Why wouldn't he? What possible reason would he have for not writing a concession speech?
Sam: The wrath from high atop the thing.
Toby: He up and said we were gonna...
Josh: No! You gotta go outside, turn around three times and curse!
Toby: Spit.
Josh: Spit and curse.
Toby: Do everything. Go.

It has come to my attention that a lot of people post a lot of personal information on the internet.
Do you folks not realise that RUSSIANS are online too?

(made in Russia)