Here's a comparison of Kathleen in the rocker when she was first born, and now. These pictures are pretty close to the same scale. It's hard to believe just how much she has grown.
Cheers,
Megz
PS: No sign of the little one yet.
12 November 2007
How quickly they grow...
So, we're getting all of Kathleen's old things out and ready for Not Nooboo to use. Kat is fascinated with all of it and wants to play with it. She loves the rocker (which she calls a "rocket") and will put her toys in it, or climb in it herself.
Here's a comparison of Kathleen in the rocker when she was first born, and now. These pictures are pretty close to the same scale. It's hard to believe just how much she has grown.
Cheers,
Megz
PS: No sign of the little one yet.
Here's a comparison of Kathleen in the rocker when she was first born, and now. These pictures are pretty close to the same scale. It's hard to believe just how much she has grown.
Cheers,
Megz
PS: No sign of the little one yet.
10 November 2007
D-Day
Well, today was meant to be Due Date for Not Nooboo, and with two hours left in the day, there's still no sign of the little one.
Guess he or she is going to be late, just like big sister Kathleen.
-Megz
Guess he or she is going to be late, just like big sister Kathleen.
-Megz
04 November 2007
Renovating
It is now almost a year since Peter, Kathleen and I moved to Wellington. The house we're living in used to belong to my parents, and we've been here since pretty much Christmas last year. All that time (and longer) we've been talking about renovating the house.
Now this is a bit of an emotional subject for me, since it's the house I grew up in. However there are several things that I would be happy to see the back of. Such as the 1970's carpet and wallpaper. I've been looking at these for 30 years now and I am SO OVER IT. I know patterned wallpaper is making a comeback at the moment, but I'm ready for a change.
So Peter and I have been talking about renovating the house for quite some time. We have come up with several different ideas and plans. The house is essentially 2.5 bedrooms (2 bedrooms plus study). And with baby number two on the way, we would ideally like to make it a 3 bedroom plus study house.
After much discussion and deliberation, we hired a Project Management company in July this year. Right from the beginning we said "baby number two is due in mid November, so we want everything done by end October at the latest". They said "Yes, we can do that".
The reason for hiring a project management company was
- so that they could take care of bringing together all the different contractors involved
- because they have contacts in the industry and know who's available in that time frame
- because they have good relationships with the contractors and get good rates from them
Peter and I came up with a design that we liked, that made minimal changes to the house. However as we talked with various people along the way we made a few changes to the plan.
Here is the original layout of the house as it was when I was growing up:
And here is the layout of the house as we have been living in it since Christmas last year.
What this floor plan doesn't show is the temporary nature of this layout. Because we always knew we were going to be doing renovations, we kinda just put things anywhere we could find the space when we first moved in. The house was already furnished when we moved in, so we had to cram both our furniture and my parents furniture into the house.
Thus ... The dining room was used more as a store room for bits and pieces, and not really used for anything else. In Kathleen's bedroom were stored a couple of unused beds, propped up against the walls. In our bedroom was the dining room hutch full of serving plates and glasses, and our big Plasma TV. It was always intended that the Plasma TV would be wall mounted in the living room. But knowing the walls were going to come down some time in the near future, we never bothered to wall mount it, and instead had it at the end of our bed - oh dear, how sad, never mind ;-)
So, here is the floor plan we proposed creating as part of the renovations.
Note that the walls come out between the kitchen and laundry, and kitchen and dining room, to make one large room. And half the wall comes out between the kitchen and living room, with a breakfast bar put in the gap. The idea is that anyone in the kitchen is not excluded from any socialising being done in the living room, and they can also see the plasma TV mounted on the wall.
You will also note an extra wall being built in the front bedroom. This would be a temporary wall, the kind they have in office buildings, that would provide separate bedrooms for the kids while they are little, but which would be taken out at a later date so they could share one big room. I was concerned about the new baby waking during the night and waking Kathleen up if they were sharing a room in the early days.
So, we dealt directly with the Project Managers, who arranged a valuation and an architect and builder and plasterer and Council building consent. Another reason for choosing a Project Manager was their expertise in this area and being able to get it all done quickly. Sadly this wasn't the case. The planning stage took much, much longer than we wanted it to. I understand that it is important to get everything right in the planning stage, but there were times when a week or two would go by simply because we were "waiting to hear from somebody".
Finally, on Sunday 23rd September, they got back to us with a final quote and project plan / timeline. Up until this point we really had no idea what it was going to look like in terms of cost or time involved (but we knew it wouldn't happen overnight). We knew we would have to move out of the house while the work was going on, and had planned on moving in with Peter's mum.
The timeframe had the builders starting work on Monday 1st October, basically one week from the date of the meeting. It had them finishing the work on Friday 9th November, i.e. the work would take six weeks. HOWEVER this is the day before baby is due!!!
So that would have given us ONE week to pack up EVERYTHING in our house and either store the stuff we don't need in the short term downstairs in the basement or take what we do need over to Peter's mum's house. Which, as it turned out, we would never have gotten it all done in one week.
The next problem was that we'd then have to move everything back again, with a toddler AND a newborn.
But the worst part of all was the quote itself. It was way, way, way over our budget. Of course that was including all the "nice to have's" that we'd asked them to quote for along the way, such as granite benchtops and rimu finishings. But still, Peter talked to a few people and everyone seemed to think that it was overpriced by about 20%.
So to summarise, we had been given one week to:
- pack up and move out
- decide what bits to cut out of the project to bring it into budget
- decide on all the extras such as which carpet and which paint and so on.
It was just NOT going to happen.
So, rather than be rushed into such an important and expensive decision, we've put the whole thing on hold until the new year. Right now we're going back to the drawing board trying to figure out what to do.
In the meantime I have still boxed up the things we don't use on a regular basis and stored them downstairs. Because whether we do it now or in February, it still had to be done. And it's easier to do it with only one baby in the house rather than two.
We have also rearranged the bedrooms as per our renovated plan:
- Partly because I'd done all this prep work and wanted to see some benefit from it.
- Partly in order to see if it really works or not before we spend the money.
- Partly to make room for Peter's mum who has now rented her house out and come to live with us for a few weeks until she moves back to Texas on a permanent basis.
- And partly to make room for Not Nooboo, who will probably end up sleeping in our room for a while.
So the floor plan of the house now currently looks like this:
The biggest change from how the house has been previously and from our renovated plan, is that Kathleen's room is now the room off the kitchen (i.e. what would have become the dining room). We were surprised to find that it is actually a pretty good size for her at the moment, although of course it probably won't work long term. I still envisage that long term Kat and the new baby will share a room once the baby is old enough.
Peter and I are still deciding on our options. One option is to simply redecorate and not make any structural changes at all. Right now though we are enjoying not having the stress of moving - although having said that we've spent the past couple of weeks getting the Salvation Army to take away all our excess stuff, and then moving Peter's mum and her stuff in with us.
But now that is all done and we are sitting back and waiting for baby to arrive. It won't be too long now, so watch this space.
-Megz
Now this is a bit of an emotional subject for me, since it's the house I grew up in. However there are several things that I would be happy to see the back of. Such as the 1970's carpet and wallpaper. I've been looking at these for 30 years now and I am SO OVER IT. I know patterned wallpaper is making a comeback at the moment, but I'm ready for a change.
So Peter and I have been talking about renovating the house for quite some time. We have come up with several different ideas and plans. The house is essentially 2.5 bedrooms (2 bedrooms plus study). And with baby number two on the way, we would ideally like to make it a 3 bedroom plus study house.
After much discussion and deliberation, we hired a Project Management company in July this year. Right from the beginning we said "baby number two is due in mid November, so we want everything done by end October at the latest". They said "Yes, we can do that".
The reason for hiring a project management company was
- so that they could take care of bringing together all the different contractors involved
- because they have contacts in the industry and know who's available in that time frame
- because they have good relationships with the contractors and get good rates from them
Peter and I came up with a design that we liked, that made minimal changes to the house. However as we talked with various people along the way we made a few changes to the plan.
Here is the original layout of the house as it was when I was growing up:
And here is the layout of the house as we have been living in it since Christmas last year.
What this floor plan doesn't show is the temporary nature of this layout. Because we always knew we were going to be doing renovations, we kinda just put things anywhere we could find the space when we first moved in. The house was already furnished when we moved in, so we had to cram both our furniture and my parents furniture into the house.
Thus ... The dining room was used more as a store room for bits and pieces, and not really used for anything else. In Kathleen's bedroom were stored a couple of unused beds, propped up against the walls. In our bedroom was the dining room hutch full of serving plates and glasses, and our big Plasma TV. It was always intended that the Plasma TV would be wall mounted in the living room. But knowing the walls were going to come down some time in the near future, we never bothered to wall mount it, and instead had it at the end of our bed - oh dear, how sad, never mind ;-)
So, here is the floor plan we proposed creating as part of the renovations.
Note that the walls come out between the kitchen and laundry, and kitchen and dining room, to make one large room. And half the wall comes out between the kitchen and living room, with a breakfast bar put in the gap. The idea is that anyone in the kitchen is not excluded from any socialising being done in the living room, and they can also see the plasma TV mounted on the wall.
You will also note an extra wall being built in the front bedroom. This would be a temporary wall, the kind they have in office buildings, that would provide separate bedrooms for the kids while they are little, but which would be taken out at a later date so they could share one big room. I was concerned about the new baby waking during the night and waking Kathleen up if they were sharing a room in the early days.
So, we dealt directly with the Project Managers, who arranged a valuation and an architect and builder and plasterer and Council building consent. Another reason for choosing a Project Manager was their expertise in this area and being able to get it all done quickly. Sadly this wasn't the case. The planning stage took much, much longer than we wanted it to. I understand that it is important to get everything right in the planning stage, but there were times when a week or two would go by simply because we were "waiting to hear from somebody".
Finally, on Sunday 23rd September, they got back to us with a final quote and project plan / timeline. Up until this point we really had no idea what it was going to look like in terms of cost or time involved (but we knew it wouldn't happen overnight). We knew we would have to move out of the house while the work was going on, and had planned on moving in with Peter's mum.
The timeframe had the builders starting work on Monday 1st October, basically one week from the date of the meeting. It had them finishing the work on Friday 9th November, i.e. the work would take six weeks. HOWEVER this is the day before baby is due!!!
So that would have given us ONE week to pack up EVERYTHING in our house and either store the stuff we don't need in the short term downstairs in the basement or take what we do need over to Peter's mum's house. Which, as it turned out, we would never have gotten it all done in one week.
The next problem was that we'd then have to move everything back again, with a toddler AND a newborn.
But the worst part of all was the quote itself. It was way, way, way over our budget. Of course that was including all the "nice to have's" that we'd asked them to quote for along the way, such as granite benchtops and rimu finishings. But still, Peter talked to a few people and everyone seemed to think that it was overpriced by about 20%.
So to summarise, we had been given one week to:
- pack up and move out
- decide what bits to cut out of the project to bring it into budget
- decide on all the extras such as which carpet and which paint and so on.
It was just NOT going to happen.
So, rather than be rushed into such an important and expensive decision, we've put the whole thing on hold until the new year. Right now we're going back to the drawing board trying to figure out what to do.
In the meantime I have still boxed up the things we don't use on a regular basis and stored them downstairs. Because whether we do it now or in February, it still had to be done. And it's easier to do it with only one baby in the house rather than two.
We have also rearranged the bedrooms as per our renovated plan:
- Partly because I'd done all this prep work and wanted to see some benefit from it.
- Partly in order to see if it really works or not before we spend the money.
- Partly to make room for Peter's mum who has now rented her house out and come to live with us for a few weeks until she moves back to Texas on a permanent basis.
- And partly to make room for Not Nooboo, who will probably end up sleeping in our room for a while.
So the floor plan of the house now currently looks like this:
The biggest change from how the house has been previously and from our renovated plan, is that Kathleen's room is now the room off the kitchen (i.e. what would have become the dining room). We were surprised to find that it is actually a pretty good size for her at the moment, although of course it probably won't work long term. I still envisage that long term Kat and the new baby will share a room once the baby is old enough.
Peter and I are still deciding on our options. One option is to simply redecorate and not make any structural changes at all. Right now though we are enjoying not having the stress of moving - although having said that we've spent the past couple of weeks getting the Salvation Army to take away all our excess stuff, and then moving Peter's mum and her stuff in with us.
But now that is all done and we are sitting back and waiting for baby to arrive. It won't be too long now, so watch this space.
-Megz
10 October 2007
My Predictions
These are my predictions for Not Nooboo. For the record, I am writing this on the 10th of October, but won't publish until around the 1st of November. I am making this disclaimer in case Not Nooboo arrives before that time, that these predictions were actually made first. But I'm holding off on publishing them until other people have had a chance to comment on my previous post with their own guesses.
GENDER - I don't really want to have a guess on this one. My gut feeling is a girl, but I am hedging my bets so that I don't get a shock in the delivery room. Peter is confident that she will be a girl, so if he turns out to be a boy then Peter is in for a big shock.
Either way I don't mind. A girl would probably be easier, i.e. we already have the clothes, books, toys, etc. But to have one of each would be nice too.
BIRTH WEIGHT - Kathleen weighed 3.135kg at 41 weeks. I'm guessing that if Not Nooboo goes to term or longer that s/he will weigh a little more than that. If s/he is early then I'm not sure. My guess is 3.3kg.
BIRTH DAY - As I said in my previous post, I do everything on the 22nd. So I really wouldn't be surprised if Not Nooboo shows up on either October 22nd or November 22nd. I know second babies often come early but somehow I don't think this one will. S/he is due on Nov 10th so I'm going to guess Nov 16th. We'll see.....
OTHER - The biggest thing I'm expecting is for Not Nooboo to be the complete opposite of Kathleen. While she takes after Peter with blonde curly hair, I'd like to think Not Nooboo will look more like me with straight brown hair. But more than looks, I'm expecting their personalities to be completely different.
Kathleen is a night owl. She's happy to stay up late each night and sleep in in the mornings. Not that I really mind that too much, although by the time she goes to bed I'm usually knackered. I predict Not Nooboo will be a morning lark and that I'll be getting up early with him/her and going to bed late with Kat, unless I can somehow change their schedules.
Also, despite the loud voice and outgoing personality, Kathleen is actually a quiet girl. She loves to sit and read books. She loves to get her toys and pretend they're cuddling or eating or sleeping. The beginnings of imaginative play. She doesn't really run around, and isn't one of these toddlers that's always on the go. She still has lots of energy and loves jumping, but she's not always going at a million miles an hour. But I think Not Nooboo will be. Have to wait another 18 months to find that out though.
Whatever s/he is like, s/he will have a lot to live up to with Kathleen. Which is why I think they'll be so different. Kat started sitting up at 4 months and crawling at 6 months, but didn't walk till 15 months. I think Not Nooboo won't crawl until much later but will walk sooner, maybe around the 12 month mark. Once again, we'll have to wait a year to find out.
I'm also hoping against hope that because Kat was such a high maintenance, social baby, that Not Nooboo will be a placid baby. Yeah right!
So, there's my predictions. We'll just have to wait and see how it all turns out.
-Megz
GENDER - I don't really want to have a guess on this one. My gut feeling is a girl, but I am hedging my bets so that I don't get a shock in the delivery room. Peter is confident that she will be a girl, so if he turns out to be a boy then Peter is in for a big shock.
Either way I don't mind. A girl would probably be easier, i.e. we already have the clothes, books, toys, etc. But to have one of each would be nice too.
BIRTH WEIGHT - Kathleen weighed 3.135kg at 41 weeks. I'm guessing that if Not Nooboo goes to term or longer that s/he will weigh a little more than that. If s/he is early then I'm not sure. My guess is 3.3kg.
BIRTH DAY - As I said in my previous post, I do everything on the 22nd. So I really wouldn't be surprised if Not Nooboo shows up on either October 22nd or November 22nd. I know second babies often come early but somehow I don't think this one will. S/he is due on Nov 10th so I'm going to guess Nov 16th. We'll see.....
OTHER - The biggest thing I'm expecting is for Not Nooboo to be the complete opposite of Kathleen. While she takes after Peter with blonde curly hair, I'd like to think Not Nooboo will look more like me with straight brown hair. But more than looks, I'm expecting their personalities to be completely different.
Kathleen is a night owl. She's happy to stay up late each night and sleep in in the mornings. Not that I really mind that too much, although by the time she goes to bed I'm usually knackered. I predict Not Nooboo will be a morning lark and that I'll be getting up early with him/her and going to bed late with Kat, unless I can somehow change their schedules.
Also, despite the loud voice and outgoing personality, Kathleen is actually a quiet girl. She loves to sit and read books. She loves to get her toys and pretend they're cuddling or eating or sleeping. The beginnings of imaginative play. She doesn't really run around, and isn't one of these toddlers that's always on the go. She still has lots of energy and loves jumping, but she's not always going at a million miles an hour. But I think Not Nooboo will be. Have to wait another 18 months to find that out though.
Whatever s/he is like, s/he will have a lot to live up to with Kathleen. Which is why I think they'll be so different. Kat started sitting up at 4 months and crawling at 6 months, but didn't walk till 15 months. I think Not Nooboo won't crawl until much later but will walk sooner, maybe around the 12 month mark. Once again, we'll have to wait a year to find out.
I'm also hoping against hope that because Kat was such a high maintenance, social baby, that Not Nooboo will be a placid baby. Yeah right!
So, there's my predictions. We'll just have to wait and see how it all turns out.
-Megz
One Month To Go
Only one month to go now until Not Nooboo is due. My biggest worry at this point is not the birth, but how I am going to cope with two little ones. How am I going to continue to give Kathleen the attention she deserves while still looking after the needs of the little one. When I think back to when Kathleen was tiny, all I remember is spending all my time either feeding her or rocking her to sleep. She was a full time job. She still is a full time job, although she can amuse herself for short periods of time. Can a person hold down two full time jobs at once??? AND keep their sanity??? I really don't want to fall into the trap of sticking Kathleen in front of the TV when I've got my hands full with the little one, but I'm afraid I will end up doing that. She really loves Dora. And Maisy. And Barney. 
BTW, it's slightly off topic but I gotta say that Kathleen really is her Daddy's daughter. Because she also loves computer games. She has two games - Busytown and Reader Rabbit - and is always asking to play them. I don't mind but it does mean that I'm stuck there helping her. If I hear the Busytown songs one more time I may go crazy. She has learnt to sort of use the mouse though and can play the colouring in games by herself by just pushing the mouse back and forth.So with the due date only a month away, I can't help wondering what Not Nooboo is going to turn out like. We don't know if it is going to be a boy or a girl. Both pregnancies with Kathleen and Not Nooboo have been very similar. Both times I have gained a similar amount of weight, but slightly more this time. Last time I found I had no appetite for nine months and didn't eat much. This time baby is sitting lower and therefore my stomach isn't so squashed and has room for more food. I don't know if carrying low is an indication of gender or just the fact that everything is so stretched from last time!
But at this point I'd love to hear other people's predictions for Not Nooboo. Please leave a comment in the comments section with your guess. I will post a follow up with my own predictions later on.
BOY or GIRL
BIRTH WEIGHT
BIRTH DAY
Anything else you want to place bets on - hair colour, eye colour, name, etc.
Here is some info to help you...
- Baby's due date is Saturday 10 November 2007.
- I have so far gained about 11 kg / 28 lb. With Kat I only gained 6 kg, so actually that is quite a difference.
- Kathleen was due on 13 Jan 2006 but was late and induced on 21 Jan 2006.
- She weighed 3.135 kg / 6lb 15oz.
- I do everything on the 22nd - I was born on March 22nd, Peter and I started dating on Nov 22nd, we also got engaged on Nov 22nd several years later and married on Nov 22nd a year after that. I also think Kathleen would have been born on Jan 22nd if she hadn't been induced the day before as my midwife thought I may have been going into labour naturally anyway.
- Plus, here are some comparative tummy shots of Kathleen and Not Nooboo at 34 weeks (note this about a week and a half ago).
Not Nooboo | Kathleen |
I'm looking forward to seeing who is closest.
-Megz
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