Three years ago our lives were completely turned around by the arrival of one cute and spirited baby boy, Eli Thomas Hughes. He was an amazing sleeper, hit all the milestones right on schedule and gave us a reasonably smooth introduction into parenthood. 

Yesterday, our cheeky boy turned three years old! We had a Planes themed birthday party with family and close friends and it was so much fun. Given my current energy levels, I had decided to keep it pretty simple with the food and decorations, but I was so pleased with how everything came together at the last minute. At Easter time, Mum had planned a Planes themed Easter egg hunt and in the process had hand-painted wings of most of the planes in the movie. After all her hard work (and considering Eli's love of the movie and the figurines) we decided to recycle them as decorations for the party.

For the food we bought savoury hot appetisers from Costco and served alongside homemade sausage and chorizo rolls, cheese platters, fruit platters and dips. The sweets included rocky road, cloud cookies, raspberry and macadamia blondies and blue jelly 'cloud and sky' parfaits. The cake involved a blue and orange coloured ice-cream creation with wafers and honeycomb. Thankfully, no one left hungry!

Dave charismatically led the kids in games like 'Deliver the Parcel', 'Planes Statues', 'Planes Bingo' and 'Pin the Propeller on Dusty'. Eli was exceptional, avoiding tantrums and dutifully giving hugs to all the generous present givers, even waiting for a long time for the parcel to get around to him to open in Deliver the Parcel. 

All in all it was such a fun (but tiring) day! Hudson chose to continue 'celebrating' with us by waking suddenly at 9pm, hysterical and coughing. He strongly resisted being put back to bed and ended up being driven around by Dave for an hour until midnight. In the end, the only way he would sleep was in the pram, and he continued to sleep fitfully for the rest of the night. Dave was amazing, sending me to bed as I had not sat down the whole day and was flagging and nauseous.

The next morning I was awoken by a knock at the door and a glowing green owl clutched in one hand. It was THE morning!! Eli was very excited to received our gifts, particularly the Chuggington set (bought for $5 on eBay!) that we had set up for him in the playroom. It was a struggle getting him to stop playing with the set, even for pancake breakfast! 

Thinking back to last birthday for Eli, where Hudson was soooo grumpy, this time he was absolutely incredible. He adopted Eli's new soccer ball as his own, of course, but was largely content following around the balloons that we had left lying on the floor! We were even treated to special enthusiastic hip dancing during the party and he just loved having everyone around. 

  

As for baby news, well, we had the scan last Monday and everything was fine! There is a tiny jelly bean with arms bobbing around in there and Dave and I both shed a tear of relief at the hope of new life. It has been so much easier mentally for me, knowing that the constant nausea, fatigue and bouts of vomiting are not for nothing. Actually, right as I have hit week 9 I have started feeling a lot better, still constantly nauseous, but not needing to crash right after the kids go to bed and the last time I threw up was Tuesday. This is totally new for me, as usually my worst period is from 10 to 16 weeks. I think it has also helped for me to have something else to plan for and focus on, keeping my mind off how I am feeling and onto what I am doing. Life is good.

Pregnancy is tough. 

I blissfully forget about the reality until I'm smack bang in the middle of it and then all the memories return. The way the most inane of smells can have you reaching for the spew bucket, how you constantly need to graze even though the last thing you feel like doing is eating, how getting up quickly can make everything go black and how your energy is constantly at 'connect your charger'. 

This week has seemed to last forever. My parenting has suffered a major blow as the kids sense weakness and hone in on it like a guided missile. Dave has been amazing though, getting up before me, bringing me breakfast in bed, then wrangling two grumpy and hungry kids for half an hour while I ease into the day.

We also had an amazing time away with Mum, Dad and Hali at Wye River over the weekend. Despite the worst night on record for Hudson's sleeping (think screaming kid from 12:30 to 4:30am in a small three bedroom apartment), we managed to pull it together and enjoy the beach, adventures to Lorne and Apollo Bay, and bouts of Jay's Balls, not to mention World Cup soccer games sprinkled in there. 

Eli absolutely loved it, being of an age where anticipation is a positive quality now and even the simple things awed him. It also helped that he was an incredible sleeper as usual, despite the theatrics going on in our room next door. Aunty Hali played the doting but firm aunt with precision and followed the boys around the playground dutifully, allowing me to have much appreciated breaks.

The first day after we returned was the hardest as it is easy to take for granted having four extra pairs of hands to assist with kids, meals, discipline and playtime. It was a bit of a brutal shock to the system to be doing it solo again really. 

Nevertheless, we made it through, greatly assisted by a prescription for morning sickness tablets from my obstetrician. We are also nervously awaiting the ultrasound booked for Monday, given our last experience with Frankie. Dave will, this time, be coming so we can face whatever happens together. 

One day at a time. Or at least that is how I'm attempting to approach life!

Sometimes it takes a little thing like gastro to change your perspective. 

We found out that we are pregnant a few weeks ago, and the discovery brought mixed feelings. Hope, for the promise of a new life; fear, that we will experience the same loss as last time; and reluctant acceptance that the next few months are going to be tough. 

Pregnancy does not agree well with my body. I have already started feeling nauseous and like cooking is the last thing in the world I would like to do (a far cry from the usual joy that hospitality brings me). Despite crashing into bed around 8pm each night, I spend most of the day looking longingly at a bed or couch, hoping for just a few minutes rest. And, needless to say, my patience levels have not increased. 

And then Dave got gastro. It started with general queasiness on Tuesday night, then progressed to full blown symptoms, and by Friday night he was still under its' painful grip. We both really struggled, and every twinge of queasiness was a dagger- was I getting it too? What would we do with the kids? How on earth are we going to survive this? How the hell is Dave going to find time to do his marking and reports after losing three full days he would have otherwise put to good use?

Thankfully, one silver lining is that Hudson, who had been regularly waking inconsolably through the night due to teething, started sleeping all the way through again. 

And then the storm began to pass and we saw sunlight again. Dave could do more than walk from the bed to the bathroom, and I felt less like a zombie mum staggering from task to task.

Actually, I think the experience has helped us both increase our capacities. I've realized I can do more than I first thought, despite feeling continually off, and Dave is now in high power reports mode. 

We're not taking any chances with the gastro and are still sleeping in separate beds for the time being. Last night Dave crept down to my room to share a thought: "The pain is in the  adjustment of expectations, not the increase in intensity."

It really is all about expectations. This pregnancy I'm thinking less about how long I have to go and more about how far I've already come. And how quickly time goes when your children are growing up. I think I say once a day how Eli is growing up too fast. We have to enjoy this journey, even the discordant notes. I'm sure we will notice later when we look back  how they have been weaved into a majestic melody.

To say it has been a rough morning is like saying Antarctica is a little bit chilly. If I caught a replay of the events I think I would cringe with shame and it would be a struggle to keep watching. 

Eli woke up in a funk. Little things that would normally not even register were catalysts for massive tantrums. The biggest inconvenience to him was, of course, coming to breakfast. Once Dave hightailed it out of the war zone, things didn't exactly improve. In the end, after about three stints in time out and a few yelling matches, I ended up throwing his breakfast in the bin half finished. That was almost 2 hours later. 

I was exhausted and Eli was hysterical. I put him back to bed at 9am. I followed suit very soon after, though with Hudson wreaking havoc it didn't take long before I had to haul myself back into reality. The problem: Hudson had found a wet nappy and torn it apart all over the carpet so the little beads of silicon (or whatever they are) were everywhere. I can only hope that none of it made it into his mouth... 

I'm not really sure how we pulled it together. I was certainly directing a few symbolic flares upwards and a few expletive laden texts to Dave in the meantime. I think one of the mantras that helped was from a poem I read recently, bluntly entitled "Bitches Get Shit Done". The content of the poem echoed familiarly as I surveyed our situation, it was definitely too early to try and coast until Dave got home, I sure as hell wanted to pull a blanket over my head and block everything out, but I pulled myself up, channeling women who are capable and patient, becoming them in the process. And somehow we got there in the end.

Not saying the rest of the day was perfect, I still got cranky and controlling with the kids as we tried to make scones. And I was anything but patient with Eli when he started screaming at me to fix his show as I was gently patting Hudson back to sleep. But we found the magic again. Eli built a shopping center with his Lego, Hudson practiced crashing his cars and endlessly followed around a soccer ball, making oooh and ahhh noises as he went. We managed a quick trip to the shops to get jam for our scones and both boys actually played very nicely together most of the time. 

Motherhood is bloody hard sometimes. There is no other job on earth that pushes you to such extremes, particularly when you have high expectations of yourself and issues with control. I hate it when I fail, when I get 'growly' at Eli and crack it at something that is objectively not even a big deal. The mirror glaringly reflects all my faults and a whisper constantly tries to convince me that I'm screwing my kids up with every outburst.

Most of the time I channel my energy into frenetic cleaning so that at least I can feel in control of something. Today I tried not to do that but it was really tough. I did do a bit of cooking instead but hopefully that is more redeeming as it involves the kids too, and, come to think of it, forces me to release my control to let them help. 

Despite the absolute shemozzle of our morning, I do consider myself overwhelmingly lucky to have two kids, let alone ones as cheeky, endearing, cute and charming as Eli and Hudson. And my failures are a good reminder of the fact that I have no hope of doing this motherhood thing without a hell of a lot of divine help. 

I know that God forgives me for screwing up, but that is not what is still hanging over my head...I forgive myself for failing...Man, that is hard to say. 

Ok time for some photos to remind me that life is not like this all the time!

I have a new favourite kids' book: 'Cooking with Grandma'.

I almost feel like a child again, delving into the pages with wonder and pouring over every detail of the illustrations. The content of the book is actually quite simple, following Anya's visit to her grandparents house and what they cook each day. The magic is in how each creation becomes part of an experience where they create a scene, share their offerings or invite people to join in the feast, culminating in a magnificent party with everyone around a scrumptious looking, cherry-laden chocolate cake!

The Grandma in the book is amazing. In every picture she has a look of pure joy, surrounded by cooking chaos, wearing homemade chefs hats and dressing up to the nines, sharing her skills and creating whimsical experiences for her granddaughter.

She embodies a complete understanding of 'the good life', embracing every moment and finding utopia in the seemingly mundane, bringing people together with food and magic. I so want to be like her!

We just had another Wine Tasting Party on Friday night. I took Eli and Hudson to the deli with me to choose from the tempting array of cured meats and cheeses. I felt like a kid in a candy store as we pointed to all of the treats we wanted to take home! There is something pretty special about getting the house and food ready for an impending party... hanging decorations, putting scent in the candle burner (Yankee's Vanilla Cupcake), slicing the homemade bread, arranging the salami and brie and grapes and dips onto the butchers paper. As people arrived, one by one, Eli's anticipation grew and he positively danced with excitement, playing the perfect host by hand delivering Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar chips to each of the guests!

The wine tasting format is pretty awesome too, with the funny/meaningful stories people come up with for their wines, and the prospect of new tastes and experiences every 10 minutes. As the night progresses, people relax more and the sounds of animated discussion and belly laughter fill the air. Every time we finish one of these nights we emphatically declare that we should have them every month! The only downfall is that my motivation to host them goes down dramatically when I become pregnant...

I really hope that my children can catch even a little of the magic of bringing people together through food. It really seems to me that it is the perfect place to share life with others, generously give to those around us and create moments that will never be forgotten. I hope that when I look back on my life, I will have been like that Grandma, living with such joy, generosity and wonder, creating moments of magic that draw people in, like the warm glow of a candle in the window where a storm blusters and blows outside. What a privilege that would be.