Loius the Third

He's finally here, Louis Shayan, born 18th June 2011 weighing 4kg!
Its been a busy but special time the last three weeks, easing into a new family routine and just enjoying our precious new arrival. Two VERY excited siblings are ever ready to carry him, this little bundle of calm squishy huggable softness. That's right, calm. A word I prayed for from the moment I found out we're pregnant, all through a rather unusual pregnancy, that last awful week of being overdue, something i didn't think we were genetically capable of! Ok, so he's only 3 weeks old and its too soon to be sure, but so far, I'm thankful for every long nap he takes.
So many things I'm thankful for right now, having Vahid home for 2 blissful weeks, visitors a plenty with gifts and some very welcome and unexpected meals, and just a whole lot of love from many special people.
And so a new journey begins....

2 special people

I just realised how few pics I have of hubby on this blog, so here he is with my dear grandma. These two get along quite well actually, her house is one of his favourite places to visit, and their conversations are interesting. Vahid breaks out into 'fluent' farsi, and she tries to pop in a few words of English, and thus they communicate quite effectively.

rosy picnic

SHE turns 4

She was born during a FIFA World Cup (how can i forget Daddy watching 3 games that night while I played a very different game!) so of course every 4 years, the whole planet celebrates with her. Once more, for numerous reasons, i decided not to celebrate the event this year. And on this very quiet day, what do we wake up to: Australia has a new first ever female Prime Minister. Politics aside, this was a bit of history here. And of course, Uncle Lessan and Melissa (both of whom are right at the top of her list of 'Favourite People apart from parents') were here visiting. To top it off, there was a lovely family dinner that night at Mondona's beautiful home,  partly to celebrate my grandma's birthday (little did i know). So the VERY youngest and oldest members of the family got to share a birthday! Notice how the very oldest is not at all comfortable with the attention, bless her, as opposed to the very youngest who can't get enough of it! An amazingly happy and content little girl went to bed that night (no mummy, don't carry me, I'm a big girl now).

Around the house these days

 - when nobody else will do it, just get on with it.... and don't mess with a chainsaw wielding mama!
-Danny's room in a rare state of orderliness, a virtue that is SO HARD to practice, and makes me the resident dragon!
- Amy's room contains all the kids books. Hmmm we love our books.... will post more later on some favourites.
-Amy having visitors. Not as peaceful as it looks in 2D.

Happy Birthday Lessan!

The 4some cousins growing up in Africa - Lessan, Nura, Vafa, Martha. Current locations: Lessan in Isreal, Nura is in the best of all places, waiting for us, Vafa and I are in Adelaide, oz.
Lessan, maybe 9 or 10yrs old. Ngoundere, Cameroon.
My sweet little brother ! So many good memories.... and many a pillow fight!

October in pics

Danny's photo of my current knitting project - first ever sweater, with help from my pro grandma (retired knitter who i'm trying to get back into knitting, for selfish reasons:)
My darling bro pays us a VERY brief visit from Haifa, this is a picnic at Mt Lofty botanic gardens on a cold spring day, and some warm memories.
Love picnics, can ya tell! Baha'i Holy day with friends! Great times.
Danny and his uncle whom he adores and tries to coax into a lot more conversation and games than Lessan would initiate, the 2 get along just great.

the weekend

what we each did on a lazy sunday morning..... followed by a hectic week. Danny's working in the new building that's being built in our backyard, a house for my grandma. Life in a construction site can have a few perks!

Daniel's prayer

people who make me smile

Danny with his K-nex invention, my darling Aunt Jaleh and Grandma, who live together at the moment and are my pillars of support with the kids, cousins Vafa and Parisa, recent imports from Canada and Texas and fabulous with kiddos. I just feel so appreciative of family now, after being away for 2 yrs. And even more blessed to have my aunt and her family living here, after years of geographical separation. Vafa is THE best cousin ever, still with the exuberence and some of the innocence i remember from Cameroon days, and SUCH a gentleman now. Helps with missing Lessan less, in a way...

A dawn party!

This year for Amy's 3rd birthday, we decided not to have a party. Many reasons. Main reason being cultural/faith views on the concept of birthday parties. Generally speaking, i don't much enjoy kid's birthday parties where the child is the centre of attention, gets to open presents in front of everyone, kids get filled up on sugar and junk, produce huge amounts of waste and get sent home with more of the darned rubbish. I'm sure we all do it with the best of intentions, to celebrate, bring friends and family together, an excuse to get together etc, its just that consumerist society has turned it into something so superficial and ego boosting, in my opinion.
I really don't have all the answers yet to the dilemma of what to do instead, but here's what we did this year - Nothing. Until last night. Spur of the moment decision to set up a surprise breakfast for the family. Some special occasion felt crowns (thanks to soulemama's book) i made earlier were placed on their spots, some candles to blow out, and voila! Her majesty was absolutely thrilled with the table next morning, as was everyone else! Cake for breakfast, yummm! Brought out their baby scrapbooks, told her story of the day she was born, lots of attention from everyone, and at the end, she helped clear up and on her own, thanked me for the 'party'. I even got the thumbs up from my dad, who is the brianwasher behind all the above fluff. happy mommy. happy birthday girl.

@ Home day

We're trying to have Sundays as family day, where we touch base and do all the many things we could do at home, when we get to use all the books and toys and crafties that i keep collecting. It takes a special effort especially for me to give on my 'getaway' time, but the results are sooo worth it. Rainy, cold winter days makes it a LOT easier to stay put...
Here's what we did last sunday, all together.... apple pie, from scratch!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hope all you awesome mamas out there had a lovely day. It was a special one at this end, the first time the kids really got into the whole mothers day thing. Danny coudn't contain his excitement all week about having made a surprise for me at school, and 'mommy just don't look in my bag, okay?'
So the minute he woke up this morning, i was greeted with, ' By the way, Happy mother's day!!' and the biggest warmest hug ever, instantly followed by a most gorgeous card with a spinning flower which he'd carefully cut out. Inside was his message in his neatest writing ever, not bad at all for someone who is still learning the alphabet...so proud of the little man:)
Oh... lest we forget her majesty, she insisted on getting a card too, but big bro was not interested so she had to make it herself.
Photo by Amy.

A harsh reminder

Last night was a harsh reminder of how fragile life can be, and how thankful I should be for the 'ordinary'. Right after dinner, Danny started having a few red spots on his face, nothing unusual for this allergy-prone kid. After 10 mins, more spots on his neck, and his ears went bright red and were extremely irritable. Hmm, maybe some antihistamine should fix that, I only give it when he's really miserable. One dose, and redness is getting to his mouth, swelling developing around the eyes, inside joints...okay maybe i didn't give enough medecine, here's another dose, now go to bed and get some rest, you'll be fine Danny.
15mins later, he comes back this time his face doesn't look good at all, he can't kep still for all the itching, i'm starting to panic. One last dose of Zyrtec, and this time i'm keeping a very close eye on him, checking his tongue for swelling (none obvious), can u breath, yes mommy.
Finally, about 45 mins since the first sign, there's Vahid, me and my friend Sukriti who happened to be over, getting very worried and decided it was time for the hospital. But wait, he has an Epipen, shouldn't i be using that now? After a frantic search in a very panicky state of mind, i finally found it in the fridge, where its supposed to be anyway.
By now Danny is not his usual bouncy self and has slowed down a bit, still getting worse.
Quick, get this adrenalin into him. How? never done this before.... Easier than i thought, Epipen is as easy to use as a needle gets. Press blunt plastic end into thigh, hear click sound, needle has magically popped out, delivered its life-saving carge, and out in 10secs.
Releif.... Lets go to hospital just in case.
Within a few minutes, swelling subsides, redness dimishes. Life saved.
Whew!
Now to figure out what on earth CAUSED it!!! He IS allergic to quite a few things, but i've been super careful the last 5 years, i THINK i know everything he's allergic to, but apparently not.
I still can't figure it out. So for the second time in his life, it takes a life-threatening event to get a decent referral to an allergist to get tested.
And to think that the night before, Vahid and I were have a big fret session about how slow his reading is compared to his peers, how shy he is at school, the really 'important' stuff u know...

A peek at our day

With Danny now settled into the new routine of school, its a wonderful new phase of life for me to have that precious mother and daughter time with Amy. She is now 2.8 yrs and able to engage in lots of activities. I'm trying to get into a routine of some structured activities in the first hour of the morning before we get carried away with other things like outings, chores. So far, she's responded very enthusiastlically to any learning experiences where she has mommy all to herself, and i simply can't keep up with how fast she learns. Here she's doing a simple aphabet matching activity and felt board













The girly stuff, which Danny never really got into even tho i exposed them both to all sorts of toys. They both LOVE my fabric box in the background. Lots of imaginative play comes out of that

They both love gardening, hmmm, wonder where they get that from (says mommy who's been dreaming of the country life, la de da, someday). And yeah, a little housekeeper in the making, just give me something REAL and USEFUL to do, i do it "my byself". Gotta love the enthusiasm of preschoolers hey....before 'I'm bored' enters their vocab.

New Beginings

First meeting with my parents at the Baha'i House of Worship, Sydney. Unforgettable

Its been a long journey, but now i feel like i'm finally home. It the most comforting feeling in the world, to be surrounded by love. "Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble, and there is always time" (Baha'i Writings).
To wake up in the morning and have breakfast with mom and dad, be able to leave Amy with her beloved grandpa for the whole morning while i take Danny to school for his first few days at school, and come back to a happy kid who hardly missed me!!! Lunch with my darling grandma and aunty, the odd uncle or cousin always showing up, hardly cook dinner, hardly realize that hubby is so late from work..... This is bliss.... the contrast to my previous lifestyle is stark. I write this to share my joy, and as a reminder to myself to continue appreciating the good bits about living close to family, long after this initial euphoria passes.