Artsy Fartsy

Due to popular demand, I'm giving you a closer look at the art on the wall in Evan's corner. And yes, I can call it popular demand even though it was just one person saying they wanted to see Marcel's Dirty Dancing sign up close. It was a lovely person who is very popular with me that requested it so here we go.

That's the Dirty Dancing reference sign up there on the left. So simple, so genius. Makes me chuckle every time. I'm going to force Marcel to open an Etsy shop with me where he does all the creative thinking & actual work but I get to name it or something. I need to learn how to letterpress or do paper cut, which is not called paper cutting I'm pretty sure but I can't remember what it is! Anyway, our shop is going to be awesome.

That little jewel sits right next to my laser-cut wooden owl from Typo, where it was either $17 or $27. 

That's about a million dollars cheaper than I saw anywhere else for similar things. 

Oh, the heart is also from Typo ($4). I love that store!

I need to take time to edit dark corners & extra crap out of my pictures.

Remember when I said I was going to start making collage animals? It was a long time ago. Anyway, the pig is the only good product of that creative burst. 

The picture on the top right is another of Marcel's genius creations. The "religious" figures are Bill & Ted in a stained glass window that we saw online (it was a stained glass phone booth!) & he took the graphic & added my favorite quote/life lesson "Be excellent to each other" underneath for Evan to soak in as meditation.

The owl was just a free postcard from the hotel we stayed at for our 6th wedding anniversary in Canberra. Free postcards advertising art exhibits are by far one of my favorite sources of artwork.

And a little "E." I am hopelessly smitten with initials & names as decoration so am thrilled it's trendy at the moment & I tend to go bananas. Once the trend passes, it will be too bad because I won't stop.

Again, photo editing would have been wise. That's the antenna to our spiffy video baby monitor so I can swim with Ben & keep an eye on sweet Evan, napping inside. I never thought I'd be a video monitor kinda gal until Target had one on clearance & it's super duper! 

The picture on the left is one of my favorites of all time. It's a picture of a painting in a junk shop in a tiny country town in Austria. We were visiting Marcel's relatives who live out there & I had basically breastfed my way around Austria with Benny so when I saw this painting of what I assume is Mary feeding Jesus, I felt immediately connected to it. The store wasn't open & was only half-assembled so there was no way I could buy the painting but Debbie was kind enough to take a quick snapshot, capturing the stuff around it too. Where it hangs is just above my side of the bed so when I'm feeding Evan now in the wee hours of the night, Mary (or whoever) is keeping me company.

Um, the fish card was a $1 when Borders was closing out. Nothing special but I love it.

Nice greeting cards, especially letterpress, are another one of my favorite (& cheapity cheap cheap) sources of "art."

I only took a picture of this one because I couldn't fit it in with anything else but I felt sorry leaving it out of this pictorial essay. I'm weird like that. Another letterpress card from Borders $1 pile when they closed, heaven bless them. If you throw a mat & frame on anything, it spiffs right up doesn't it?

Couldn't stop taking pictures so here is a closer look at Evan's clothes rack, my New York skyline from Typo (I'm a walking advertisement for them). I especially love the Bonds penguin pants & that circus elephant shirt from some random store at The Entrance, which was having a mega sale. 

Is this not the most boring blog entry I've ever done??? I'm having a great time myself but if you're scratching your eyes out reading this, you won't hurt my feelings if you need to leave.

Notice that I'm not stopping, am I? This is my bedside table of diaper-changing essentials in the basket (plus a bee rattle). I am mad that the best little guy diapers I've found so far are plastered with the Wiggles but they're cheap & good so I hold in my frustration.

That "E" rocks my world. It's from Urban Outfitters ($10) when they first introduced international shipping to here & would ship anything for $10. I'm not sure why I didn't buy out the entire housewares section because I love most of it, especially every single one of their letter styles. That's right, I'll never outgrow Urban Outfitters - I have no shame about it. Just ask the ARM WARMERS I bought there in college (don't laugh, Dana, I know you remember this). 

Also please pay attention to my beat up Nashville coaster. I once had a whole set that I bought from a truck stop (as one does) but somehow I only have one left. We must have serious sweaty drink issues. And the tiny picture of the boys I love more than life itself. 

Anyway, that's Evan's corner for you. Now on to even less important things. I am currently trying to eat a little better & starting the very very beginnings of being active again, though I can't start anything serious until I get clearance from my doctor on Friday's final post-surgery checkup. When I'm done with this fitness & eating well kick, I assume I will be able to wear green sparkly awesomeness too. 

99% of the time I am quite happy to look up to the curvy girls of the world as inspiration - Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, etc. you know you are perfect - but just for today can't I please grow about a foot & be shaped like a column so I can pull this off?? Sometimes life ain't fair, folks.

Oh & if any of you Americans are shopping at your Target Christmas departments & happen to see the below range of Christmas stockings, can you please pick me up an "E" so Evan can match the rest of us? I'll pay you back for it & for the stupid international shipping. Their website only has a few letters left & they're on clearance so I'm assuming that's a bad sign that they're not going to stock them this season but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 

What kind of fool buys matching stockings overseas anyway? I should have seen this holiday disaster coming but I just didn't. *sigh*

Okay, now I'm going over to Facebook to post the funniest pictures I have ever seen & I'll try to post them here as well for those of you not on the Facebook. Spoiler alert: when I turned my camera on today I found a series of pictures that Ben had apparently taken of himself without us knowing. Lord help us.

Your burgled baubles bore me.

Again, I am avoiding actually finishing the longest blog entry on earth because I'm bored with it. Let's see if I can sum it up in one sentence:

I finally feel great, Ben is awesome, Evan is fantastic & Marcel is dandy too.

So there, you're up to date. I did get hit with mastitis for a day or two in there somewhere & there may still be some thrush lurking in my nipples but I'm treating it (sorry, I should warn you before you have to read terrible things like that) so feeling okay. Mom went home & I miss her terribly, especially since that leaves me at home with the boys who are like a circus act of nuttiness all day. I kid you not that Ben actually woke Evan up from a nap by standing in front of him with a fake banana under his own nose, yelling "MOUSTACHE! MOUSTACHE! MOUSTACHE!" I shall write a book one day if only to pay him back in humiliation for the trials he has put me through.

I feel the need to tell you that we had the best night the other night. Ben went down to bed easily, we had Dr. Pepper to drink (our grocery store occasionally randomly stocks "foreign" imports that surprise me)(I rarely actually drank Dr. Pepper in America so not sure why I jumped out of my skin for it now) & found old SNL episodes on the Channel 7 streaming channel through our Playstation. That last part doesn't even make sense to me so just go with it but they were there. So we were watching a Tom Hanks episode from the glory days with Will Ferrell & that whole gang, slurping on our Dr. Peppers with two happily sleeping boys, then I fell asleep on the couch & Marcel got to stay up late playing video games.

Can I tell you what capped it all off with a bang? Does anything get capped off with a bang - how messed up was that metaphor? Anyway, Evan went to bed at 7.30pm & didn't wake up until almost 3.30am! That is almost 8 hours! So I was nervous that last night would be a disaster after the miracle but low & behold he went to bed at 9pm & woke up at 5am!!!! I know all my exclamation marks appear boastful but I'm seriously not bragging because I am 110% baffled, it's a total "Why The Face" situation round these parts because I do nothing whatsoever to encourage good habits in my baby. No sleep training, no schedules, just feeding on demand, ignoring expert advice & everything that added up to Ben not sleeping through the night until weeks after I weaned him at 19 months, not 6 1/2 weeks! Kudos to you Modern Family fans for laughing at the "Why The Face" by the way.

I'm not getting my hopes up for continued full nights of sleep because I know failure always follows any success like this that causes me to break out into a spontaneous Running Man. I expect we'll be back to waking every 3-4 hours & being zombies. Last night I woke a good few times anyway just to make sure he was breathing & to check the clock & whisper "Wow" to myself like a loony tune.

The absolute only thing I did differently was to put him in his little wrap swaddle thing, which I hadn't used in a few weeks due to my laziness & forgetting to wash it in time for it to dry by bedtime. I am a truly wonderful mother. Anyway, I love that little wrap & need to remember to buy the next size up since it is getting mighty snug these days - hmmmm, maybe that's the key. And maybe if I buy TWO I wouldn't have the washing situation so regularly.

Okay, on to something not related to anything the least bit important - some movie reviews! My dear sweet mother brought some DVDs over with her so we felt like normal people, finally up to date on some halfway current movies. Very exciting. Here is my take in no particular order.

Horrible Bosses
Very funny, very crude & as much as I did not care for the one episode I saw of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (I know I need to give it another try because it seems like I should like it), I adored the whiny-voiced guy whose name has officially escaped me. And good heavens, I want to see more Kevin Spacey & Colin Farrell in movies please. I could probably survive with seeing less of Jennifer Aniston's nudeness but that's probably my flabby post-pregnancy jealousy talking. She was wonderfully awful, I will give her that.

Actually, the fact that I am forgetting the dude's name - Charlie Day? Is that it? I don't know, that could literally be anyone's name I've heard recently but I'm assigning it to him - reminds me of my favorite reason for liking this movie. It's my mom's description of it. Her & my dad saw it in Vegas & she was telling me about it, calling it How to Kill Your Boss with "that guy you like ... you know, the one from the show." That's Jason Bateman by the way. It's literally what she calls him every time she needs to talk about him. I now consider it to be the true title, instead of Horrible Bosses, it's How to Kill Your Boss with that Guy You Like ... You Know, the One from the Show. But it was seriously funny. And they actually saw two Jason Bateman movies while they were in Vegas but I can't remember what she called Ryan Reynolds who was also in the second one. Maybe she can remember his name.

Rio
Is this one even really current? I remember McDonalds had the toys for it but I didn't actually have my finger on the pulse for this movie, though we had it our Quickflix list. This is the first movie that Ben has actually liked since Toy Story & he LOVES it. This one is a serious success in our house for sure so I feel bad for basically not knowing it existed. It has some intense scary scenes that we skip through or Ben climbs on to our laps until they're over. They all feature Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords as a hot mess of a cranky cockatoo so it's hard to skip them!

Anyway, funny birds, good music, a villain named Marcel, Tracy Morgan as a bulldog & it forces me to admit that I quite adore Will.i.am. I can't spell it but I can't help but like the dude - catchy music, pays off strangers' mortgages (I saw him on Oprah) & a very good voice for animation. The movie does make me wonder if that is Jesse Eisenberg's real voice? He's the guy from what my mom calls The Facebook Movie fyi.

I imagine Rio will be on painfully high rotation around here for a while but I have no complaints so far.

Crazy Stupid Love
Officially one of my favorite movies of all time, no joke. This is a great movie people! Funny, sweet but not too predictable or cloy if I'm using that word properly & if you don't walk away from this movie smitten with Ryan Gosling, I will give you your money back. Actually I'll smack you upside the head because you are dead inside. Please see this movie - you're welcome. It's on MY Christmas list for sure.

--------------

Okay, movie reviews over for now. If you have any suggestions for other movies we need to see please let me know - I miss movies.

In other news, Ben got a haircut.

And this guy desperately needs a haircut.

Have I shown you pictures of Evan's corner of the world yet? Probably so but if not, here you go. I still need to get his name ordered for that bottom corner but I keep forgetting! I'm a dunce.

My favorite part of the corner is that top left blue sign that Marcel made for me that says "No one puts baby in a corner." Hilarious! Get it, get it? Because we put our baby in a corner. And I love Dirty Dancing. Bwahahahaha. 

Okay, I'm out of nonsense for you. Have a super duper rest of your weekend.

Nerd

I'm in the middle of writing a long & winding update about life, love & two little gentlemen who run our lives now. Hopefully I'll finish it today while Ben's at day care & my car is in the shop but I make no promises.

In the meantime for the few of you that aren't on Facebook, I will share with you what Ben is wearing to daycare today. He truly is my son ... until child services takes him away from me for crimes against fashion. Yes, he's posing in front of pictures of himself - deal with it.

Hope it's lovely in your corner of the world!

Cruddy stuff & good stuff

Okay, so there's much to catch up on & as usual my brain is a little rattled so this will probably be all over the place so apologies in advance.

First & most important, I am feeling much much better! Not perfect by any means but the heavy aches & pains from the surgery are gone & after six weeks, I can finally squeeze into one pair of non-maternity (but large sized) jeans & have graduated from my granny panties into my old undies. No comments on how much strain I'm putting on the poor elastic.

The bad news is today I thought I had thrush (yeast) in my nipples. I have been having some sharp booby pain & some of the other symptoms I had last time I went through this with Ben. Luckily, I didn't have it too bad last time & it didn't seem so bad this time either so I just ran down to the chemist & grabbed some ointment. But over the day I've been watching a big red wedge right outside my left nipple that doesn't hurt but is hot to the touch & feeling achy (not post-surgery achy, more like I'm coming down with something) so now my Googling has told me that I have mastitis instead. I am counting my blessings because I have heard mastitis HORROR stories & I don't feel too gosh awful yet & must have caught it earlyish. Do not search for mastitis on Google Images by the way - lovely swollen udders run amock. So anyhoo, I'll be off to the doctor. I already have an appointment for my 6 week checkup on Thursday but I'm guessing I shouldn't wait 2 days, should I?

All that aside, Evan is doing splendidly. He is a typical newborn with lots of sleeping, pooping blah blah blah but he also has a grunting problem. I guess he has gas issues & spends a lot of time trying to push wind & poo out with much gusto. Not fun for anyone in the middle of the night. I promised myself that I wouldn't spend time dissecting sleep patterns & theories because it is really annoying but if it gets over the top in any way, I'll be sure to let you know - he's perfectly normal, usually wakes me up around 3.30am then about 6am. If we went to bed earlier than 11pm, I'm sure I'd have to wake up an extra time. He is sleeping in his own bassinet so I'm sleeping a bit better than with Ben but since he's only 6 weeks I'm not comparing him to too much & expect changes, which could be good or bad, any day at any time.

My mom leaves us for America's fair shores tomorrow so I'm sad about that. She's been so much help & good company & I'm going to miss her a lot! And without her, I realize I am back to being a full time mom but to TWO boys now. This should be interesting. Oh! Ben is starting a new daycare because his old daycare lady stopped because she's having her own 2nd baby in the next month. We visited this new place & he LOVED it. It's not a family one so I was a little nervous but it was still smallish & he took off to play with the other kids instead of hanging out with Mommy (yeah, I'm suddenly Mommy instead of Mama for some odd reason - strange boy)(And seriously, what's with all my parentheses today???) during the tour. I thought it was a good sign that when we visited his age room they were coloring pictures of Ben's favorite animal, SPIDERS! And they had spider stuff hanging everywhere - I'm sure that theme will probably be done now but it was still exciting.

Anyway, all that was to say that I'll have a bigger break with Ben being happily in daycare for 2 days instead of one so I can actually do some housework & cooking without my little hyper "helper." Can I just say how much I miss that tornado of toddlerhood when he's gone! I'm glad he's having a great time with other kids & running himself ragged but I miss him. Evan has a lot of catching up to do with his newborn personality. BORING! Hahahaha.

So over the weekend we spent a day in Sydney with my mom & really had a great time. Sydney is such a beautiful city! We played tourist & did a double decker bus tour - Evan & I stayed below so I wouldn't have a sunburnt & wind-rattled newborn on my hands but Ben had the time of his life up there. We also hit up The Star (used to be Star City) casino for the buffet, which is a silly old tradition of ours - I love bread pudding & casino buffets always have it. But much more importantly, we visited my dream place!!! Brace yourselves. We went to Adriana Zumbo's new store, which just opened two weeks ago! I had macarons - delicious, silly, amazing macarons! Lime & mint mojito, Chocolate cinnamon & chili and tonka bean with passionfruit. Mr. Zumbo, I salute you.

Now I'm tired of writing. I think I made a mistake reading the symptoms of mastitis because I suddenly feel very fluish. I will leave you with random pictures instead. Sorry. And Evan doesn't feature in them because he slept pretty solidly in his pram most of the day. Marcel just avoids the camera.

I didn't take this picture. I forgot to take a picture.
I did spend minutes staring in the window, watching the pastry chefs work their magic.
I gawked so long that one of them smiled at me like "Get a life, lady."

Not sure why I look like this but I was enjoying my last Zumbo macaron.
I think they call them Zumarons. Witty patisserie. 

Ben loves boats on the water across from The Star.

Ben smiling on the double decker bus.

Ben smiling at McMahons Point. 

Back at The Star - there was no 'B' for Ben to pose on. 

RaRa & Ben