Joaquin playing with chickens

Having fun in the garden.
Feeding the chickens, collecting eggs, playing with the trucks in the sandpit.
Joaquin loves being outdoors, without shoes on. I am trying to get him to wear his hat at all times when out, he is trying and a good little boy.

November in Scone

These are photos taken in Scone.
Jason is in the photos and Sophie, Joaquin's cousin who is 1 week older than Joaquin.

Sunday in Scone

Today we stayed and played at Jas parents place.
Joaquin's cousins came over to visit and we also went to visit his other cousins.
They all live here in this small town in the Upper Hunter.
He really likes L and when she came over there was a lot of hugging going on so I manged to take some photos. Very cute indeed.



His other older girl cousin Lily, also is a bit smitten over Joaquin. We went to visit them and she pushed him around in their toy electric car and kept saying "It;s flat" as it did not have a battery.
At four pm we left and gave Joaquin a sleep and got ready to pack to go drive back home. We bathed Joaquin when he woke up and stayed for dinner. After dinner we left it was about 7pm and I was a bit anxious in getting home so late. But Jas is good at driving at night, I just think of all the kangaroos out there ready to jump on the road.
Just before 8pm we stopped at Freeman's waterhole for petrol and there was a trucked parked along side and I knew there were cattle in there. I saw a few little noses try to poke out from above the side of the truck. Immediately my heart sank for them and I feel so guilty eating beef. Joaquin was tired by then so i gave him a bottle while Jas paid for the petrol. He was whingeing and crying and the cattle seemed to be listening to him as they stopped stamping their feet in the truck. Joaquin slept from 8 onwards. I vowed not to eat beef again after seeing the cattle truck, I think it was filled with young male cattle. We finally arrived home at 10.30pm and were all very tired and I breastfed Joaquin and then he went straight to sleep.

Saturday in Scone

We drove up last night to visit Jas parents in the Upper Hunter. Joaquin was very good on the drive up and he slept more that half way. He watched some Wiggles on my phone that Jas had put on there. We had dinner made by Jas's parents when we arrived and that was good after the long trip.

Saturday morning was good. Joaquin slept most of the night without waking and had a good breakfast. I think Joaquin is starting to feel much better. Today he played outside with Ozzie the cat while Jas cleaned his car. He went to see the horses with his pop and played on the swings with his pop. He ate well for the first time in over 2 weeks.
He looks a bit thin in these photos but he was very happy to get out of our house and go for a drive.





We had a family dinner Saturday night and all his cousins came over and played. Joaquin loves all of them. There was a lot of playing and Jas really gets into it, playing hide and seek. He took Joaquin with him in his arms as he was hiding and seeking and told me later how much Joaquin liked it.

i am sicky mama

I am just writing a quick post about how my life is going with my little munchkin!
He is having a small sleep but and it is 11.21am. He woke up at 8.50am for a feed and was quite congested and then I put him back down in the cot without the quilt and just wrapped with a wrap and covered by a sheet. I think he has been sleeping with too much bed clothes and I worry now that he was too hot.
He has been sick with a cold for over a week and a half, from the weekend we went to Scone. I think he got sick from being with his little toddler cousin who was also sick with a cold. It is his first real cold but thankfully he has had no temperature. I think he is at the last part of the cold so hopefully he just has congestion and sniffles and then this will go away. But it is upsetting to here him breathing with a rattling noise when he feeds.
I also was sick but now getting over it too. It was horrible so I feel for him. But otherwise he has been a good little boy. we went to a bbq on Saturday night he was well behaved did not cry and slept and ate. He had a little sleep for 30 min at the bbq and then ate and had a longer sleep afterwards and was still asleep when we got home and put him back in the cot. he is such a cutie!

The Family

Going to Scone

Monday 25^th June

Today we decided to go to Scone in the Upper Hunter to spend time with Jason’s family. joaquin is only 2 weeks old but we thought we needed to spend time with family for support as Jason and I were going crazy at home. I felt tied to the couch all day feeding and not sleeping well at night. In fact he cried so much at night and did not want to go to sleep. We were still not sure if we should travel or not considering that Joaquin still was not back to his birth weight.

So that day we left at 1pm and went to Randwick to weigh him at the Pharmacy and he weighed 3.67kg. So we decided to go from there. He was restless as we walked around Randwick with him in the baby capsule and we knew he was hungry. But we decided to drive for an hour and then feed him near the freeway. He slept once Jason started driving. At 4pm we then we tried to find a park to park near and stop so I could breastfeed him and we ended up parked in a street with big leaf trees.

We fed him for an hour and then Jason kept driving. Jason drove and Joaquin slept most of the way from there, and we were quite content to have some adult time in the car, talking while he slept. Most of the way I had to check if he was ok as he was very quite so we had to stop and I would check if he was sleeping well and had not been covered by any blankets. These are all new parent fears.

We got to Scone at about 7pm and Jason's parents were happy to see him. In a way I was happy to get out of home as i had not left home in the two weeks since he had been born and it was nice to be at Jason's parents home with the fire going and Jason's mother making lovely homemade meals each night. It really was a treat.

The hardest thing was trying to get him to sleep at night and once he was asleep, it was hard for us to sleep and then wake him feed him and try to get him back to sleep again. Some nights he cried a lot, some nights he went to sleep after a feed. There were times I kept feeding every hour or so, and times I fed for more than an hour. I really did not know how to breastfeed or know if he was sucking well or feeding well. It was frustrating for me and for him and even for Jason. Jason would ask "Is he asleep or is he sucking" I would say "sucking" but then look down and see him asleep. We had a few arguments over this!

I was also worried I was waking everyone up as Jason's day had to get up at 5am to go to work each morning, Jason's mother was on holidays at that point but I was sure that by Joaquin crying I was waking everyone up. Jason's mother said that i should not worry as Jason's dad was not able to hear anything once he fell asleep. In a way that did make me feel slightly better. But I think in retrospect it was only a few nights that Joaquin cried and cried and I could not get him to sleep. Then Jason would lie there and tell me that I was not getting him to sleep properly and I should not change tactics midflight. If i was rocking him I should keep rocking him, if I was walking around the room I should keep doing that. We decided that Joaquin just did not want to sleep in his baby moses as previous to this in the first weeks of his life we would have him sleep with us in the bed on my chest or Jason's chest. Now at two weeks we were trying for him to sleep in the little moses cot with its stand, but this was right next to the bed. So i would hear his every move and sounds and would wake when he woke and wanted a feed, it was like co-sleeping but safer.