Currently... December

It’s New Year’s Eve! And currently looking to be our least eventful one yet, haha! We had a few friends
invite us round to their houses for some celebrations, but have opted to stay home. The main reason
being that two days ago I started having some cramps and stomach pains on and off. I first dismissed it
as regular pregnancy discomfort, and after googling found out about Round Ligament Pain, which is
caused by a growing uterus. But after more than 24 hours of near constant pain I called the on-call nurse
who recommended going to the hospital to get checked out. So off we went last night to the Royal
Women’s emergency care. I felt like it might have been a bit unnecessary, but I guess you never can be
too careful when you're pregnant. Luckily they weren’t very busy and I was seen almost right away. The
good news is the baby is fine and the doctor put it down to some good old food poisoning! They gave me
some anti-nausea medicine and I'll hopefully feel better in the next few days. Andy has headed over to
the neighbour's house to have a few drinks this evening, but I don't even think he will make it to midnight.
It's all very rock and roll over here this year!

Other than that, there isn’t a whole lot going on in our house, which is a good thing. We’ve been enjoying
a very relaxing, low key summer holiday so far, full of many trips to the local pool, playing at the park,
visits to a few Melbourne attractions, and catching up with friends. Here is my currently update for
December:

Reading so many books since we’ve been on summer holidays! It’s great. I went through the top books of
2017 on Goodreads, and then reserved the ones that sounded interesting to me at the library. My first
summer read was Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the
best fiction book I’ve read in a long time. Clearly a lot of people agree, as it won best Fiction book on
Goodreads. The second book I read was The Girl Before by JP Delaney, a psychological thriller that was
a page turner and I couldn’t put down. I'm now halfway through Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, who
also wrote The Girl on the Train. This book won the Mystery & Thriller category on Goodreads, and I can
see why. It's another one that I can't wait to get to the end of.

Watching season 2 of The Crown. Like the first season, I find it a bit slow at times, but it is really
interesting to learn about the political and historical events that have happened in England during Queen
Elizabeth’s reign, through the lens of the royal family. Also, there is a lot more scandal around the royals
than I expected. We also watched The Sinner this month on Netflix which was very good, although
incredibly dark and hard to watch at times. Looking for a new series to get stuck into together, Andy and I
settled on The Killing. We actually watched Season 1 of the Danish version years ago, when we were still
living in the UK. Lots of people have recommended watching all three seasons of the American version
on Netflix, so we’ve started right at the beginning of season 1, even though it’s the same storyline.

Enjoying summer holidays without any travel plans. I love travelling, but it is nice to just enjoy a whole
Melbourne summer without a 24 hour flight, packing/unpacking and jet lag to deal with. I’ve also been
enjoying swimming again after a first trimester where I felt too tired to do any exercise. It’s the perfect
pregnancy workout as you don’t feel the weight of your growing belly. One of my favourite things about
Australia is that you can pretty much find a 50m heated outdoor swimming pool in every part of town,
and swimming lengths in an outdoor pool is just so much better than in an indoor pool. The heated
aspect of these outdoor pools is key, as I am not great at getting into cold water. When we lived in
London we were near an outdoor pool but it wasn't heated, which meant it was unusable through the
winter and still pretty freezing even in the summer - we would actually wear a wetsuit to swim in it
sometimes.

Loving this new water bottle from Lululemon that Andy gave me for Christmas. In my attempt to not buy
bottled water anymore I’ve tried out quite a few different reusable water bottles, and this one really ticks
all the boxes. It can be used for both hot and cold drinks, and is double-walled stainless steel so actually
keeps your drink hot or cold. It’s been lovely in this hot weather to have ice cold water with me all the
time, in my other plastic water bottles my water would get warm very quickly. The push top lid makes it
easy to drink from - the water flows out at the perfect pace. That seems like a weird thing to write but I
got annoyed with my last water bottle as the water didn’t flow out fast enough to quench my thirst. (Yes,
I know, first world problems.)

Wearing maternity clothes. I haven’t been able to fit into most of my “regular” clothes now for about two
months, which has meant scouring ebay and ASOS for deals on some summer maternity clothes. It has
cost me a small fortune, but I feel so much more comfortable in clothes that fit my expanding belly,
especially throughout the hot summer.

Eating/cooking a few new recipes this month. One of my favourites is this Thai Peanut salad from
Cookie and Kate. The peanut dressing makes it feel indulgent but it’s also loaded with veggies. I also
made this Roasted Red Pepper soup which Andy said was the best soup he’s ever had. Perfect as it
was super simple to make.

Drinking only one coffee a day, which sucks big time. I really miss my second coffee… not so much for
the caffeine anymore, as I think I’m used to less of that, but the social aspect of going out for a coffee. I
love cold brew and iced coffees in the summer, so I miss having that treat. I’m having lots of smoothies
and juices when we go out to brunch instead, which is probably healthier anyway, though it does mean I
always have to share my drink with Ella.

Wanting to go on some sort of trip before the baby number two is born. Either with Ella during the Easter
school holidays, or without while my mom and dad are here to look after her. Or both! We will probably
have to stay within Australia due to the pregnancy (oh how adventurous I was in my first pregnancy,
travelling to Vietnam at 24 weeks!) but I can take a short flight somewhere. Two places on my Australia
bucket list are Kangaroo Island and the Blue Mountains so I might start to investigate those as options.

Considering starting potty training with Ella. I'm so not looking forward to this stage of parenthood!

Looking forward to the rest of the summer… there is a lot coming up for us in January. One of my best
friends from London is coming for a visit in about 10 days, my parents arrive on the 16th, and of course
there is our favourite Melbourne event, the Australian Open, starting 15th January.  Fun times ahead!

Pic of the Month Ella trying out her main Christmas present... watch out everyone!

Comments

Popular Posts