beanmilk.com

I’ve not written anything on here for a while, these days I find it hard to regularly set aside a slot of time to just sit down and type about my life. There’s usually always something more pressing to be getting on with, and when there isn’t I try and spend that time getting the cogs to stop whirring and just reflect. Time passes me by so quickly these days; I look at Heidi, now 9 months old, standing on her own, mobile, with teeth and hair and a voice and a personality. I’m staggered that it’s been 9 months; staggered that it’s been 9 months already, and also that it has only been 9 months. I feel like we’ve had her forever. I find myself penciling her into my memories, and have to stop and try really hard to remember what it felt like to look at the world before I knew what it was like to truly love something so much that it takes your breath away, and prior to caring about how precious somethings are, and how unimportant and transient are others. I’m a different person now. A better person purely for having been afforded the opportunity to grow as she does. It’s wonderful, and astonishing, and gut-wrenching and heartwarming all at once.

Everyone is someone’s child: really feeling that alone, changes everything about you.

I chose to go back to university in September, I’m working with my hands, pushing my creativity and problem-solving skills harder, learning every day, and most importantly loving every minute of it. Following all of that, after the long practical classes and continuous assessed project work, and squeezing in some domestic drudgery and then some baking for fun, I’m pretty shattered, but I’m doing the two things I love the most every day; being a mum and creating, so I’m very happy with life right now. I’m so lucky to been in a position to be able to essentially ‘have my cake and eat it’; Dave’s keeping me afloat, he’s the best fiance I could ever ask for, and I try and tell him that as much as I can.
Right now I’m listening to In Rainbows (for those of you who don’t know, it’s Radiohead’s new album) and it’s brilliant. If you’re expecting The Bends, then be warned, it’s nothing like that. It’s ehtereal and floaty one minute, piercing and jangling the next, but it all comes together beautifully. They’ve grown-up, branched out, experimented, and it works. They’re a better band for it, if they stay in the same little niche forever (not that you could every really described them as having a niche to begin with) the music would stagnate and would lose it’s resonance. Fans that have grown with the music will love it.

Heidi seems a little less than impressed since In the Night Garden has been temporarily muted.

Tonight we’re off for dinner at the apex and to spend a little time catching up. Looking forward to something tasty!

Track 5. All I Need - that’s lump in your throat synth right there

…ordered a pizza, BY TEXT!!11 Hooray the fyootcher!

We’re really bad at this. Staying aboard the blog-train when you’re busy doing the parenting thing isn’t always easy. Being as seive-headed as usual (perhaps even moreso these days!) remembering to update beanmilk often just falls right out of my brain. So, today I’m making an effort to sit down and do so.

1 day later…

I’ll try this again. So, what’s been happening aside from us moving and Dave going freelance? Well, quite a bit actually. First, the baby news: Heidi’s almost 8 months old now, mobile, and proving that she can’t be left alone for a moment, because whatever you think is out of her grasp, is in fact the-most-exciting-thing-in-the-world-ever, and will be in her mouth within a millisecond. I think eating is perhaps her favourite pastime. She has taken to wrestling her spoon from me and doing it herself, and consequently ends up with food in all manner of inconceivable places. Mashed potato in her eyelashes, spaghetti in her ears, spinach between her toes…

Absolutely no idea what Little Miss weighs now, but my back would argue that she’s, ‘really bloody heavy’, since I’m still carting her around everywhere in a carrier. I’m absolutely hopeless with the pram. She’s well into her 9-12 month clothes, and is now a size 3 in a shoe (a baby 3, I should add!) and owns a pair of ‘proper’ wellies now. ‘Peppa Pig’ wellies no less. Her eyes are dark green, her hair is dark blonde, and her little bald patch is finally disappearing. Lots of ‘Mama’s’ and ‘Dada’s’ and ‘Ed’s’ (whoever he is) and also ‘t’,'th’, and ’s’ sounds.

As for me, I’m off to uni for the second time in about 2 weeks, and will be thoroughly enjoying the life of a design student/mummy (I hope!) for the new few years. Everything’s in place, so I’m just trying to make the most of doing fun things each day with H before I’m studying each day. Thankfully, I’ll only be in classes 3 days a week, the rest is studio based/self-directed study, so I can come home and work from here. We’ll see how feasible that actually is when I try it for the first time!

In other me news, I’m currently healing a nasty chemical burn to my face, thanks to a bad reaction to face wash, which left my entire face yellow, like sandpaper, cracked, bleeding, and flaking everywhere. Thankfully after a week of glycerin cream, cortisol, antihistamines and moisturiser, I’m starting to less resemble The Thing, and look more like a normal human being. Apparently I’ve got skin hypersensitivity and am lactose intolerant. Hurrah! So, it’s back to my old pre-pregnancy vegan ways for the good of my health. Bye-bye lovely cheese, tasty ice cream, delicious chocolate… you will be sorely missed, though not by my waistline.

Before I go, I feel we should mention our little rat Ryoko, who died about 8 weeks ago, after suffering with a huge, inoperable bum tumour for some time. She’s very much missed by us and all her little furry peeps upstairs.

And so as not to end on a sombre note, here’s some pictures of H

Ah, beanmilk, faithful blog of ours, oft-neglected, but much loved, kinda like my carry-on movies collection. May this be the first of many fresh posts

I’ve now switched jobs, mostly. im freelancing under the moniker of ’sqinny’ and it’s been a fun few months. So far i’ve worked on sites with varied subject matter such as compressed air, sex toys, music festivals, business training, expeditions, energy drinks, gokarts, surf shops, photographers, the scottish exec and a whole bunch more.

I’ve enjoyed it immensely and it’s really helped me rediscover my passion for the web, as well as prompting me to get up to scratch with a few technologies i’d been neglecting. im looking at you; asp.net, mootools and yui!

Being freelance isn’t without its downsides though. i’ve had a few sleepless nights and struggled to make a few deadlines here and there, but to be honest i thrive on that pressure, i’ve always loved an impossibly tight deadline, it keeps you on your toes.

I realised too, that i needed a proper testing suite, so i went and bought a pc at the weekend. i’ve been a hardcore mac user for a good few years now, but prior to that i was a pc-boy. i thought macos was all i ever needed but having this new pc has been so much fun. vista is kickass for a start, it’s nice to see windows being brought into the present. but moreso im suddenly aware of all the games and apps that i can now use, and it’s pretty exciting.

That said, so far i’ve been so busy that all i’ve been able to do is download the bioshock demo and buy the settlers 2, but that in itself has been ace! Also next week, me, alan, roan and cole are going to brighton for dconstruct, hooray!
So, with that said, im off to work on some more websitey stuff, ta-ra!

…like siobhan said, it’s been a busy time lately. but we’re now in a new house in edinburgh, which is lovely and full of mezzanine lofts and cool terraces and underfloor heating and all things. we’re very pleased

In other news, we’re all doing well, a bit stressed maybe, but otherwise good. i’ve a redesign for beanmilk in the works that i’ll put live once we get broadband put in the new place. my super fancy virginmedia 20mb broadband that is, woo!

Also, at the start of july i’m going to be becoming a freelance web developer, operating under the moniker of ’sqinny.com’, which is (in my head at least) the word skinny, but with a tinge of the web2.0’s, which i like. it’s also swedish for skinny so its not total gibberish. I’m somewhat excited about this new stage of my career. it’ll be hard work but im really looking forward to it.

Anyway, lots of stuff to be getting on with, so i’m out, speak to you all soon!

It’s been an age since either of us last updated beanmilk, (which seems to be the general way of things over the last year), but things have been a bit hectic in the Saunders household over the past couple of months.

I’m pleased to report all is well, aside from a fair amount of house stress which I wont delve into. We’re moving back to Edinburgh for a number of reasons, but mainly it’s not practical to have both of us working in the city but living in Dunfermline. Yes, we’re moving yet again, but this will be the last time for the foreseeable future, we promise!
Dave’s doing well, still working away like a hero, busy being a daddy and a rock to a rather strung out me. Heidi’s 5 months old now, 17lbs, in 6-9 month clothes (because she’s long, not because she’s a chubber!) and her first tooth has just popped through the gum (lovely!). She can sit up on her own for a few moments now, is trying to crawl when you put her on her tummy, and grabbing her feet (and everything she can!) at every opportunity. Shouting seems to be her favourite hobby these days; she’s got quite a set of lungs for a tiny thing. Oh, and she’s also got quite a bit of blonde hair now. I say, “quite a bit”, but really it’s just a light covering.

Off to view a flat this morning, so in a bit of a rush. I’ll post a better update later on, so for now I’ll leave you with some piccies!

Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow

Managed to get some time to draw today, and what better subject than our gorgeous girl

Heidi’s now 6 weeks old. She’s doing brilliantly, and on thursday weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 10oz - that’s 19oz in a week, the little chubber. I reckon she’s closer to 10lbs now. As great as it is to see our fat little princess filling out, the sad thing is she no longer fits into a lot of her newborn clothes (the trousers are too short, and so tight they give her a muffin top) so we’re now up to the 0-3 months size, which I’m hoping we get another 6 weeks out of!

H has also discovered her voice in the last week, and now likes to ’shout’ at you when you’re playing with her, across the room, or not giving her enough attention. We’ve also become quite good at distinguishing her cries (not that she does it much), so when she’s hungry she makes a very loud and very distinct ‘eng’ noise. She’s been holding her head up since she was really tiny, but is doing it for much longer periods of time, and having a good look about. She’s also doing a bit of a ‘Britney’ and losing her hair at an alarming rate, and is fast become our beautiful slap-head daughter. Poor wee thing.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading a number of parenting books (which I’m particularly enjoying), namely, ‘The Contented Little Baby Book’ by controversial parenting ‘guru’ Gina Ford, and ‘Secrets of the Baby Whisperer’ by Tracy Hogg and Melinda Blau. Both of which outline and emphasize the importance of a routine in the baby’s life, (though each has a different approach) which completely goes against the midwife/ready steady baby notion of feeding on demand. After managing to get Heidi into a great routine at only 5 weeks, I’d definitely recommend having a bit of structure to your day, so the chaos of having a new little person to love doesn’t overwhelm you completely! Human beings are habitual creatures and thrive on a bit of structure - as it was put in ‘Secrets of the Baby Whisperer’, “Imagine if you were on your way to work and you get caught in a traffic jam, or a plumbing problem stops you having your morning shower - it irritates you and throws your day off a bit” - well, the very same applies to babies it would seem; they don’t like surprises, and cope much better when they can anticipate what’s coming next.

Taking this into account we’ve decided to abandon most of Gina Ford’s regimented ‘by-the-clock’ routine, which dictates exactly when to feed/change/bathe your baby every day (though some of the times seem to fit naturally with Heidi’s own routine), and adopt the Baby Whisperer ‘E.A.S.Y’ routine, which allows for the freedom of your babies individual personality. Not every baby can go four hours between a feed, and letting them cry it out in between will only make your little one distressed. E.A.S.Y stands for ‘Eat, Activity, Sleep, and You’ and allows you to build structure in a way that suits, around your babies own clock, whilst always sticking to the E.A.S.Y order, so that your baby is comforted. So when Heidi eats, she then has an ‘activity’ such as a wriggle on a playmat, a walk in the pram, or a bath, then she goes down to sleep, and then you get to enjoy the ‘you’ time, to relax or catch up on the housework etc. It’s really working for us now, Heidi has her bath at 6ish, a massage, a feed, a wriggle about on her mat, and will sleep until 10:30pm. She’ll then have a bigger feed, and sleep until 3:30am, then after feeding, until around 7:30am…

I’m sure this is all terribly interesting to those of you not currently deep in the throes of parenthood…

I’ve got another 4 months left of my maternity leave, and I’m really enjoying being a stay at home mum, though it wont be feasible once the allowance runs out. Fully immersing myself in motherhood has been better than I could have possibly imagined. I’m turning into a bit of an anorak mum though; when I’m not playing with or doing things for Heidi, I’m reading parenting books or chatting to the other mums in my birthclub (babycentre.co.uk forum full of mum’s who gave birth in January). I feel like I’m taking it all in my stride; I’d be lying if I said parts of it aren’t incredibly difficult at times, but thankfully the easy and fun parts far outweigh them. Motherhood has come quite naturally to me I think, and I’ve never been more comfortable in my identity, and never been more in love, with both Dave and Heidi; it’s a truly beautiful thing.

Aside from the beautiful and whimsical notions of parenthood, there’s the practical side to think of, so on that note, I’m off to do the bottles and hang out some tiny clothes