the world is an exhausting place

as you can see, the little man isn't quite so little anymore. He seems to be growing "like a mushroom", no wonder, since he can't seem to get enough of the boob. Typical male, I guess. He's now three weeks old, how fast the time is flying. I just want to wrap him up and keep him like this for ever. I look at willow now and he looks so big, and I have trouble remembering either him or fin being this small.
We've had a couple of weeks of weird january weather here, it's been very autumn-ish, so I had to make the little guy some pants, as I have an aversion to babies wearing only terry towelling bonds suits, they just don't say a lot about a person, do they? No, I didn't make these from scratch whilst looking after three children, these were some I had half made from before he was born, so I only had to hem them and put in the elastic. Even that took a while.

I also managed to do the button holes on this little dress and sew on the buttons, so that it can go forth into the world today. After this series of minor conquests, I got all cocky and thought I could keep going, so I decided to do a little alteration job that arran's mum asked me to do about two months ago on a stretch top. Yes, I should have known that this was a bad idea, as stretch fabrics and I don't really get along all that well, but I thought it would be ok if I overlocked it. No. Now my overlocker is unthreaded, my worst nightmare, and I am faced with having to get the book out. I am not someone who can concentrate on reading a manual at the best of times, but in my current sleep-deprived state, there is no way I am going to be able to focus. Maybe I can get mr.arran to do it, he's already tried theading it for me, the darling that he is.

I've also just listed a few kids' tshirts on etsy, modelled by my very enthusiastic little helper. I'll probably be listing a few more things over the next couple of weeks.

tagged

I've been tagged, by tiel, from tsk tsk. I feel all important now...I hope my seven random things are interesting enough. Here goes.
the rules: link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog, share seven random and/or weird things about yourself, tag seven random people at the end of your post and link to them, let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
1. when I was a kid, I had no dolls, because my dad was completely freaked out by them. Yep, he was a weirdo, but I loved him anyway. Luckily, I was more than happy with lego and smurfs.
2.I cannot eat raw tomato, it makes me gag. I do love tomato based sauces though, it seems it's ok if it's cooked.

3. my husband and I share the same birthday, although he is a year older. Sometimes, our birthday also falls on mothers day, which makes for a confusing situation.

4. I have one sister, who is 16 years younger than me. I was lucky enough to be present at her birth. She is now 18, and she was at jasper's birth two weeks ago.

5. when I was in year ten, we moved to the country, where we lived in a caravan for a year, while we were building our "house" (I use this term very loosely), which we then lived in for another year. There was no power, no running water, no phone, and no internal walls. During this time, my sister was born. This was a character building experience, which led me to move out of home to complete my HSC.

6. I have four sewing machines. Two are vintage husqvarnas, "husky one" and "husky two". They are both a delicious shade of metallic green. One is a vintage bernina, "bernie", and the other one is a vintage singer, which is in a very nice cabinet. It doesn't have a name yet, as I haven't been able to try it out because it has no foot pedal. My husband is to blame for this sewing machine overkill.

7. I can touch my nose with my tongue. Ok, I probably didn't need to share that, did I?

Ok, now I have to tag seven other people, right. I'm not sure that I can come up with that many, so I tag levin from i wannabe crafty, victoria from dear meagan, linda from freyed edge, and ella from little red caboose. If any of you guys have already been tagged, please disregard this challenge, I'm a little behind on what's going on at the moment!

my three sons

I'd forgotten how much time babies consume...my days have become a blur of feeding, burping, nappy changing, and if I manage to get one thing outside of this list done, then it's a real achievement! Fin has been waiting a week for a haircut, although that has more to do with the current skateboarding obsession going on in this house at the moment than my lack of time. They are now making their own skateboards...as if there wasn't enough going on already.

I actually managed a bit of sewing the other day, out of necessity. I made this sling for jasper, which has proven to be a big hit, he slept for an hour in it yesterday while we went and bought some school supplies. I know, it's early to be worrying about stuff like that, with still two and a half weeks before school goes back, but if the truth be known, we were in need of a bit of retail therapy. Once we had the school stuff sorted, we also manged to pick up a couple of other odds and ends, including charlie and lola no.5 (for me, of course!). The pattern for the sling came from here, and it's a simple tube sling, well at least it was simple until I decided to complicate things by lining it, because, you know, two fabrics are better than one. Anyway, I got there in the end, and after only a little bit of unpicking, we have a very nice portable sleeping device. I've only managed to use it once, because every time we go out (which hasn't been much so far), dad won't let me near the little fella, insisting on carrying him everywhere. I'm sure it doesn't have much to do with the fact that he is the ultimate chick magnet. I'm wondering whether he's going to want to take him to work with him when he goes back tomorrow.

he's here!

little jasper finally made his way into the world on thursday morning, the 3rd of january, at about 9am. Right on time, of course. I should have known that would happen and been more patient, given that I like things to be on time. Once he'd made up his mind that he was coming into the world, there was no stopping him...I woke at about 6am with some pain, and asked arran if he could wait a while before going to work (just in case). Had a shower, made some tea and toast, but then decided that maybe we'd better go. Got to the hospital at 7.30, and had him at 9. Phew. Once again managed to do it naturally and drug-free (not that there was really time to think about it anyway, I think the final stage lasted 8 minutes!), and once again, had the most wonderful midwife, who made us feel safe and calm, and delivered our little man safely into our arms without too much fuss. He weighed 3.3kg, and was 51cm long, and has dark hair just like fin.

What a week it's been. Willow's fever continued and we ended up at our local hospital on new year's eve, where we were given some antibiotics, because it was decided that it was probably a virus but may be bacterial. At this stage I was still really sick, but obviously there was nothing to be done for me, and I was more worried about willow anyway. On new years day, we thought he was getting better, but then the next day he crashed again and was feverish all day. By that afternoon, I decided that I needed another opinion, so off we went to gosford emergency at about 6pm. The docs were quite alarmed that it had been going on for so long, and ordered x-rays, blood and urine tests, which of course freaked me right out since I've never been through anything like that with my kids before. The little guy was so brave, even when they had to put a canula in his hand, and cooperated with them the whole time. Anyway, to cut a long story short, six hours later, we were given the results that there was nothing really wrong, it was just a virus, and we were able to take him home. So, we get home at midnight, and six hours later we're on our way back there again to welcome our new little man into the world. He waited just long enough to make sure everything was ok. And willow is fine now, and I can't believe how lucky we are that everything turned out the way it did.

I'm not sure whether this post really makes any sense, as I started it yesterday, and I'm feeling a little sleep deprived, but it's going to have to do, because if I don't post it now, it may take me another six months! I promise I'll be back soon, as soon as I get some pics sorted out!