Kerry

Our family grew over the weekend. We're now a family of 3 and a half members - though I suppose even half is a bit exaggerated at this stage :)

Welcome Kerry, our gorgeous black cross lab who will turn 3 in two months time.

We got her from the SPCA because her previous owners didn't want her anymore (can't understand why). She's completely docile, though timid around strangers and we suspect she may be a bit scared of men; she's house-trained, vaccinated, neutered, micro-chipped, walks well on a lead and doesn't bark the place down. In fact, she's super quiet. She loves being petted and if you stop petting her she'll paw at you to let you know that 'you're not done yet, please continue'. And she's already made herself very much at home.

Super Kid

Things I hope I won't do once the baby is born:

• Change my profile picture to one of my child. I'm not my child, I'm still my own person with my own face. A family pic or a pic with me + child is fine, but I don't want to exclude me from my profile.
  
  
• Call him or her 'prince' or 'princess'. I hate it. We are not royalty. It was one of the reasons I refused to wear a tiara for my wedding. Even worse is princep or principessa in Maltese. 'My little ball of drool and poop' is so much cuter anyway.
  
  
• Share unnecessary information about his/her daily life in minute detail. I don't think it's important to let people know that today's poo was of peanut-butter colour and consistency.
• Talk only about my child on this blog! Haha!

I'm sure that there are other things that I notice which irk me somewhat; however, I cannot say what I'm going to end up doing so all I can say is that I hope not to fall into any of the above traps... or worse!

Disclaimer: For any paranoid readers - this list does not refer to any person in particular and any mentions that may be similar to what you/your family/your friends do are purely coincidental and unintentional

First Trimester

This is what my experience of pregnancy has been like (until now).

Morning sickness - Nil. Never. Not even a slight feeling of nausea.

Evening sickness - Occasional (maybe 5 or 6 times) due to eating dinner. This is slightly strange because it's only ever happened when we're eating out. Possibly because the ingredients used in restaurant meals are richer than those at home? What I've learned from this is to chew my food properly and eat slower, so really it's a good thing, because I come from a family of gobblers, which isn't a healthy way to eat. P, on the other hand, eats properly, enjoying each mouthful. I've also taken to ordering small portions whenever I eat out, and sometimes I can't even finish what's in my plate! It's resulted that with my new eating habits the sickness has truly subsided.

Food - I want to eat more often, but only very small portions. As I just mentioned I often cannot even finish a starter portion of food. I'm into wheat at the moment so I want sandwiches (white bread only, which I need to control because wholemeal would be better) and pasta mainly.

Weight gain - Negative. Another really bizarre notion but apparently common and likely due to the change in eating habits. In fact I've actually lost weight, according to the scales, but my shape is changing, according to my clothes.

Tiredness - This has hit with a vengeance, plus the summer heat doesn't help. I'm often asleep by 9:30 pm and I get tired quicker when walking up stairs or hills. There are mornings where I do wake up feeling quite exhausted and I have to make an extra effort to prepare myself for work so I'm hoping that this will get better as the months pass and the weather gets cooler.

I'd say that I'm pretty lucky till now and it's all going very smoothly. Nothing is affecting me terribly and I can cope with the tiredness for the most part.

News Update

A few things have happened since I last updated, but I just haven't been in the mood of blogging and if there's one thing that I don't want to do, it's to feel pressured to update regularly.

1. I had a drastic haircut and changed my hair colour. I needed and wanted to do this especially after having grown my hair for the wedding. It took me a few months to actually get round to it mainly because I thought 'I've spent ages growing my hair, I should enjoy having it long', but in reality I didn't. It was shapeless and tedious. So I went for the chop and had a complete colour change. It was fine at the beginning but I don't like it anymore. Oops. Not the cut, which is fine because my hair grows at extraordinary speed, but the colour... it's just not doing anything for me and I don't think that the summer sun has helped it either. So I'll be heading back to the hairdresser's fairly soon for a remedy.

2. We travelled to UK for the weekend to attend P's niece's Holy Communion. We flew to Liverpool and stayed with my cousins who were the perfect hosts and treated us to a gorgeous dinner and showed us round the dock area of Liverpool which is just beautiful and really cool. And they also didn't complain when my first stop out of the airport had to be a NEXT outlet so that I could buy closed shoes. It was pouring with rain when we landed and clever clogs here only had a pair of open toe wedges (we were flying Ryanair, had to pack light!) We only got to see a very, very little bit of Liverpool but we will definitely go back because it looks to be a brilliant city and one that deserves a few days of visiting. The Holy Communion was a pleasant affair and everyone was very happy, plus the sun shone, so that's always nice. 

3. A good friend of mine got married on a lovely July evening in Valletta. The ceremony was nice with lots of people from different countries present (they both studied abroad and she travels a lot) and the reception was at the gorgeous Lower Barrakka Gardens from which you get a beautiful view out to sea. The band were absolutely super and it was a fun evening.

4. It was my father's birthday on the 14th July. He would have turned 66. It's his first birthday since he passed away so there was a Mass said for him and then we all went out to lunch. I posted a photo of his 64th birthday on Facebook where he's cutting into a birthday cake and I wrote 'I hope they have cake up in the clouds' and a friend of mine replied 'They definitely do' which I thought was the best, most positive reply and I really appreciated it. Thanks Ben.

5. Some of my cousins came to visit from UK and Australia so we met up with them for a pub dinner and just a really fun evening filled with catching up. It was also the first time that P met a couple of them so he got to know them all a lot better too.

6. And, just to save the best for last, on the 11th June we found out that we're expecting a baby. Just eight months into marriage but a perfect time nonetheless. It's still too early to know whether it's going to be a boy or a girl, but I have a hunch, so now we'll see if I'm right or not. We are going to find out because I just think that it's so much more practical that way. Knowing this news obviously meant that I couldn't drink at the above-mentioned wedding, or when in UK, or at any dinner events; however, I don't believe in the whole 'you shouldn't dye your hair when pregnant' old wive's tale. I researched into the matter and there was nothing that I found troubling. What I did stop was the IPL hair removal treatment because I wasn't comfortable with doing it, even though there are no results about its effect on pregnancy. It's such a special time and thankfully everything is going well till now. I obviously wish that my father could still be here because he would have loved to be a nannu. About a week after we got married, I was visiting him in hospital and he asked me 'are you a mummy yet?' It was such a poignant moment.