Unsettled

It seems like we take two steps forward and one step back in our quest to get resettled in Australia.  Yesterday we signed our new lease - yay!  But literally an hour later, we got an email that our sea freight has been delayed AGAIN and they have now tentatively scheduled our delivery date as December 23rd!!  AARRGH!   

Not only is this possibly going to interfere with our Christmas plans (not much is planned - just going to be in Wollongong at my parents place, but certainly don't want to be unpacking!) but it is significantly later than we had originally been looking at for our move-in date. I cannot wait that long and have my fingers secretly crossed that somehow Customs and Quarantine will be super fast and we can get delivery of the sea freight no later than Dec 21st.

To back up a little bit, the first time we were advised that our sea freight was delayed we thought "hmmm, a little inconvenient but only a couple of weeks so no big deal".  We did not however, think to make sure that the company who is supposed to be organising our relocation would remember to extend us in our temporary accommodation.  Big mistake!  Turns out that the apt block we were in was totally booked out from Dec 1st so we would have to move.  Grrrr... but since we thought we'd get delivery of our stuff about Dec 10th we decided to take my parents up on their much repeated offer to stay with them, so they could have some quality time with Mr. Baby. On Sunday we picked up a rental car and came down to Wollongong with all our stuff.  I know I will regret the decision to stay here at least a few times, but all in all I think it's good for the little guy to get to know his grandparents. So here we are.  Now, being here until December 23rd is an entirely different story. I most definitely cannot be here with my parents for 5 weeks.  So within two hours of receiving this email advising us of the further delays for our sea freight, we had tentatively organised for the relocation company to provide us with rental furniture to see us through until our sea freight FINALLY gets here!  Today I put in our order for the bare bones stuff we need to live and it will all get delivered on Tuesday next week.  Which means we'll be living in the new place next week!

So this weekend will be a bit of a rush to go out and buy some appliances.  We'll probably also take a look at some cars as we need to buy one before Christmas. I am already cringing at the amount of money that we will spend.... ouch.

As I said, two steps forward and one step back. But slowly it's happening.

Giving of Thanks

So I was thinking about Thanksgiving (which is today in the US) and I was thinking about what I am thankful for. I started to write a mental list of all the these things and after I got to about 35 of them I realised they all boiled down to one thing that I am thankful for in many ways:

Love 

Whether it be family, friends... even food... anything at all really, the ability to love and be loved is far and away the thing I am most grateful for in my life.  Everyone in my life has shown me how to love better or in different ways and so I send out a big eThankyou to every single person in my life. 

And that is my 'giving of the thanks' this year!

xxxxx

Success!

I am terribly late in writing this post, but we found a house!!  When we went out the weekend before last we saw a few places out near Cronulla Beach.  Not in Cronulla itself, but in the suburbs just to the west of the beach.  We found two that we really liked and submitted applications for them.  We subsequently realised that one of them didn't have air con. This is a non-negotiable issue for my husband!  It stems from a day a few years ago when the east coast of Australia had a once-in-a-hundred-years heatwave and it was about 45 degrees celsius one day.  Now, this is truly something that has never, ever happened before in my life.  But it happened that day and we were here and it scared the crap out of my husband.  hee hee...  Anyways, it means that our place HAS to have air con.  So we were down to one place and...[drumroll please!] we got it!

Now I must admit that I have not actually seen the house!  I have seen the pictures that were online, I have driven past the townhouse complex, and I've seen the video that my husband took when he went there on Saturday afternoon last weekend.  But I haven't stepped foot inside it myself. Which does worry me a little bit to be honest. I'm worried that the place will be too small and that there won't be enough cupboard space in the bedrooms. But I'm also certain that this place is about as good as we can get for a rental property. And it's only for a year or so. We will make it work. Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like:

Now we just have to wait for our sea freight, which has been delayed and won't arrive into Sydney until Dec 3rd. Then it needs to get through Customs and Quarantine checks and finally then we can have it delivered and move in!!

Summer Lovin' - maybe not!

So one of the things I was pretty happy with regarding our move home to Australia was the timing of it.  By leaving the US in October I will successfully avoid an entire winter - yay!  However, I have since realised one small problem with this: Summer TV.  In the summer time you are supposed to be out and about doing wonderful, active things in the lovely sunshine so they put the absolute crappest of crap tv on during summer.  And I get it twice :( 

For those in the US reading this, normal TV is quite bad in Australia with only a half dozen free-to-air channels, so you can hardly even imagine how terrible the summer offerings are.  It involves a lot of cricket.  I think it's why I love to watch tennis - you learn to love it as the Australian Open in January is about the only decent thing on for the whole of summer!

The Hunt Continues

So the hunt continues for a house or apartment for us to live in. We have been out a few times now and seen a dozen places. Up until a few days ago we were very sure we wanted to live on the lower north shore or inner west of Sydney. However, we are slowly realizing that in order to get the size and relatively modern place we want in these areas we would need to spend almost $1000 per week in rent. Yes, per week.... I've also realised these past couple of weeks, that even though our temporary accommodation is smack in the middle of town with every shop imagineable within a few blocks of me, I have been to Coles supermarket, the post office, the newsagents and the chemist. Four month old babies and clothes shopping are just not compatible.  So I have done a re-think on the necessity of being near shops other than the useful ones! I've also realised that I don't actually know that many people in Sydney and those that I do know who live in these suburbs all work in quite demanding jobs.  It's no good to have lovely cafe's nearby if you have no one to go lunching with! The few people I do know who are SAHM (this is an acronym I learnt on the web boards and means Stay At Home Mum!) all live south of the city.

The husband and I took all this info and reviewed our strategy for a dwelling. And what we actually came up with was that lower north shore and inner west are just not right for us at this time.  With Mr. Baby still being quite new in our lives, we forget that we are no longer DINK's, but are now a "young family".  And young families don't need chic bars or fancy restaurants within walking distance as they are too damn tired to do any of that now! And I can't see this changing much in the next year.  Perhaps in a year we'll decide we're ready to pay more and will have the time and energy to take advantage of those extra things in the inner suburbs, but right now it would be wasting money.  So instead we have decided that a beach lifestyle is really what we think will fit well for us and are looking at Sutherland Shire.  We found two great townhouses yesterday on the house hunt and the husband is in at work right now scanning the applications to email in. Fingers crossed we get one of them!  

Besotted

I have come to realise this past week or so that I am truly in love with Mr. Baby.  I knew I would love him as I am his mum and mums love their children.  I just didn't know that I would love him this much.  Like any true love, I am happy to stare adoringly into his eyes, I study every line and contour of his face and I hang on every sound he makes.  I am totally besotted with him.

So I totally recommend kids to anyone. They are a lot of work, I freely admit this!  And sleeping, which used to be my favorite sport, is now a distant memory. But all this extra love in a person's life makes everything so much better and I am a better person for it.

With a little guy like this can anyone blame me for being so in love with him?!

Introducing the Star of our Show...

...Mr Baby!

I thought it was about time to do an update on Mr. Baby since he is the person that my entire life revolves around right now.  In short: he is fantastic.  Seriously, as babies go I think he is pretty darn good.   We've re-established his sleeping patterns now (goodbye jetlag!) so he goes to bed just after 7pm, wakes at about 4am for a feed and then goes back to sleep until about 7am. This is an extremely manageable sleep schedule and I think we are pretty lucky.

Yesterday, we went out for a great lunch down at Darling Harbour with my folks and also my aunt and uncle. It was the first time my aunt and uncle had met Mr. Baby and they think he is very cute. Everyone brought more presents for Mr. Baby. My mum went a bit over the top and practically bought him an entire wardrobe of clothes. I was expecting this though - I purposefully didn't purchase clothes in the US to bring back as I knew all the relo's here would buy him cute things! My aunt and uncle also bought him a stuffed toy koala.  My husband has named it Wally. And of course, we had to take a silly photo with the koala.  Maybe it's just us, but babies offer such opportunities for stupid pictures!  They can't say no to you or tell you that you are embarrassing them :)  And we'll need some good fodder for his 21st birthday eventually.  This one will do nicely:

Mr. Baby is cooing, smiling and giggling a lot now - the grandparents were loving it! Actually, his mum and dad love it too.  The little noises he makes are so cute and when he smiles his whole face lights up - adorable! We think he may start to roll over soon too.  It's quite incredible to see how much and how quickly he learns new things. His favorite pastime right now is sucking on his fingers, which involves buckets of drool. I think he will add his toes into the mix soon as he studies his feet very seriously and is slowly figuring out that they are his and he can move them! 

Harder Than I Thought...

So blogging is much harder than I thought it would be. For someone who likes to talk as much as I do, writing things down is quite tricky. I looked at my last post and quite frankly I think it's a bit boring! Maybe it's because it is my own life? Having not been a 'blog-follower' prior to this, I guess I need to get used to how it's done and just presume that somewhere someone finds what I write vaguely interesting. 

Anyways, on to news (the reason that I am supposed to be writing this!) It's not really news per se, but I must comment on how much I am loving the gluten free choices here at home.  I can buy my bread at a normal supermarket and it tastes GREAT! This sure beats ordering my bread once every 5 weeks from an obscure bakery in Florida who would mail it up to me. I've always found it odd that DC (and the US in general) don't have more GF options, considering how many more celiacs there are in the US than Australia due to the higher population. Guess there isn't enough money in it - if there is one thing I learnt in the US: if there is money to be made, someone will be making it!

I am also loving how beautiful Sydney is. Even with the somewhat crappy weather they've had this past week (it's been a bit gray and cool for my liking!) the harbour is so pretty.  Here is a video that we took on the weekend as we came home from Manly on the ferry.  I think my husband is quietly hoping that we live somewhere that will mean he can get the ferry to work each day. I mean, how cool would it be to have your morning commute be by ferry on Sydney Harbour?! Much nicer than the red line on the metro that's for sure.

Another thing I love about being home is that on the weekend we were able to catch up with some really good friends.  They actually live in Melbourne (Iwish they lived in Sydney!) but serendipitously were in town for a 4 day weekend to attend someone's wedding.  So we had lunch on Friday and then on Sunday we met at Manly to take a walk by the beach, get an ice cream and then have a few drinks at the pub.  Such a great afternoon.  It was also great because they have a daughter who is 2 weeks younger than Mr. Baby.  I never joined a mother's group in DC because we were leaving so soon after the birth. Big mistake!  It is so wonderful to have a chance to talk to someone about the crap you deal with, to know that you are not the only one going through these things and to also just be able to compare your baby to another baby.  Mr. Baby is apparently quite normal :)  Always good to know!  He is, however, also significantly heavier than the delicate Little Miss Baby that our friends have. And I mean significantly. He must have 3 or 4 pounds on her. We have already decided that the two of them should get married when the time comes - are arranged marriages still legal?! We did a formal intro between the two babies and Little Miss Baby grabbed a hold of Mr. Baby's hand and clung on - it was so precious!  They are seriously cute babies in their own right so putting them together resulted in tear-inducing cuteness.

As wonderful as it is to catch up with these friends and see my family, I must admit to really missing my close friends in DC. I knew it would be hard initially but it is very hard.  I particularly miss my best friend, Miss C and I feel the physical distance a lot right now.   I can't wait until she visits Australia in December. I know it will get better - once we have our own place, once I reconnect with old friends or make new ones (hopefully I can find a mothers group wherever we live). But right now it is not easy and makes me wish that I could transplant all the wonderful friends in DC to live here in the wonderful city of Sydney.  Sigh! 

New Beginnings

Where to start?! As a virgin blogger, I am hesitant to write this and have no idea where to start.  So I'll just start writing and maybe edit later...  or maybe not!  It might be interesting to see how my blogging style develops as I figure out how to do this. 

As Julie Andrews says in the Sound of Music, I shall start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. By 'beginning' I mean the arrival back in Australia a few days ago. In 2004, I left to live in Washington DC for 3 years and returned to Sydney after more than 6 years and now with a husband and 3 month old baby!  It's funny the turns life takes.  I am hoping that this blog will be a good snapshot of my life right now, which friends and family will find amusing/interesting and that it will be a good journal for myself later on.  Everyone always says how quickly your kids grow up and how much you forget about what happens - maybe this will help my memory!    

So, let's get down to business.  We arrived in Sydney at about 8am on Thursday, October 28th, 2010.  The flight went as smoothly as a flight can when you are doing about 33 hours of travel with a 3 month old.  To be honest, Mr. Baby was a champ during the trip.  He didn't cry at the take-offs or landings and cried very little during the entire trip - which I am sure was a relief to everyone else in business class :)   The only real drama was when he did the biggest poop of his life as we were landing in Sydney.  So I was holding a ticking time bomb hoping that it didn't leak all over me before I could get into the bathroom to clean him up.  It was an absolute shocker too!  New outfit required and everything.  A big mess.  Guess he was so excited he couldn't contain himself!  Sorry, bad joke... 

My biggest concern about the trip was always what effect the time change would have on the little guy.  He has been a great night time sleeper since he was 9 weeks old and I didn't want to have anything screw that up! The first two nights here he has slept for 13 hours all up, with two wake ups.  Fingers crossed that tonight he can stay up until 7:30pm and just have his usual one feed at about 4am. Today has been quite amazing with Mr. Baby as he is currently taking his third nap of the day in his crib! Daytime naps have been a huuuuge problem for him so far - only taking catnaps and refusing to sleep in his crib during the day.  So this is a monumental achievement for him!  Perhaps it's the time change that is helping?!  I have no idea and I guess it's a very extreme way to solve sleep problems for a baby - you won't read about this method in any of the books! And trust me, there are a gazillion books on baby sleep. Whatever it is, I don't really care, I just hope it continues and that he is now going to take naps in his crib every day. 

The hubby has taken to Australia like a duck to water.  He loves it here so far and is excited to be here. Two things however have elicited negative comments from him:
 - the bacon is not as good as it's too meaty.
 - the beer is expensive and he will miss American beer (although he does like Aussie beer too)

So he is clearly focusing on the key parts of life: beer and meat.  But other than this, he can't wait to be settled in.  We have to buy all new appliances since the power voltage is different here and we can't use our US appliances.  This of course means we need to buy an even bigger TV according to him.  I am all for the big flat screen TV.  But it's not like we didn't already have a large TV - it was 42" (about 105cm)!!  Apparently we need a bigger one.

Personally, I am excited about getting a new mobile phone.  For the last 6 years my phone has been provided (and hence selected) by my job. I have certainly enjoyed not paying for my mobile phone, but I can't wait to finally get the phone I want.  I am currently wanting an iPhone... but it seems that all of Australia wants one of these and they are sold out everywhere :(  I will be patient.

So these are the initial thoughts on being here in Australia.  We have made what will probably be one of the biggest moves of our life and it turns out that it boils down to sleep, bacon and mobile phones. huh. I guess it really is the little things in life!