Cloth nappy days are happy days

There here, there here, there here,they have arrived!!!!

What am I talking about you ask excitedly???

Mikey's new Baby Beehinds Cloth Nappy's!!!! YAY!

Now I realise you may be thinking now why would she be excited over that? Well here are a few reasons Number 1: I will be saving $15 a week (actually $30 in total since both bubba's are now full time cloth nappiers) and who wouldn't love that. Number 2: Knowing I am contributing a little less to the land fill is awesome..(so does this mean I can take longer showers? you know all things being environmentally equal as such, save the land fill but use up the water?)...calm down hippies I am jokin! number 3: they are just so darn cute!!
Seriously after converting to cloth for Miss Ladybug mid last year( and knocking my nappy bill in half in the process) I began to see the many benefits of cloth nappies. Especially with the modern style BBH'S which go on just like a disposable. My buddy Sarah Mc converted me to cloth for the Bug and it has been awesome, having two children in nappies is bloody expensive costing us around $30 a week. So with some encouragement for Sarah Mc...whom for some reason I want to refer to as Macca's LOL Could be that it is almost 2am on Sunday morning when I am drafting this and my mind is fuzzy...anyways where was I?....right with encouragement from Sarah I switched out Miss Ladybug to cloth and it has been simple to do, so I bought Mikey-boy 2 cloth nappy's to see whether I would have the stomach to put an 21 month old in cloth nappy's (seriously his poop is revoltingly gross!!!) but it turns out I can handle poop better then I thought, I am constantly amazed at what I can deal with as a mummy. So after placing an order for 6 more super cute cloth nappies for Mikey they arrived this week YAY!! I am so excited to be switching him over to cloth full time now. My pre-washes are done the nappy's dried and today we went cloth all day for the first time ever with both the baby's...and what do you think happened within 6 minutes of me putting Mikey into his awesome new orange nappy...yep he did a MASSIVE poop in it!! GGrrrr.. oh well I guess when its all said and done that's what nappy's are for and so he got put into his purple one instead.
I am also extremely pleased with myself as I have "turned" my best buddy Meegs into a convert to and she has put her littlest man Drew (whom I refer to as Schmoo... cause it just fits him he is so cute you wanna smoosh him with cuddles) into cloth as well. woo hoo. Our two boys look so cute in their furry minkee nappy's little monkey butts.

Breastfeeding Blues/Boobs of awesomeness

I am wondering today if there is such a thing as the "breast feeding blues"? Miss Olivia is the first child out of 4 whom I have fully breastfed till she was 6 months old and we introduced solids. I attempted to feed Mikey (3rd baby out of 4) but with little success with him having Hypotonia (low muscle tone) it was impossible for him to suck heartily at the breast and my supply dwindled down I pumped for 4 months and borrowed my friend Sarah's boobs for a feed but as post natal depression and a feelings of inadequacy and detachment set in as I felt like I was feeding a pump not a baby I gave up in despair and switched to formula,(NOTE in those 4 months I also had my appendix removed and wasn't able to feed Mikey for 3 days which did not help the supply situation even with pumping and medications)

Today however as I sat and marveled at the cleverness of my boobs and Gods design for woman as Miss Livvy drank away I also had a feeling of sadness wash over me knowing that Livvy will be turning one in a couple months and that as she grows older her dependence on me for her nutritional and comfort needs will lessen as she moves into eating more solids and drinking water and juice. While my plan is at the moment to continue to feed her till she is 18 months then re assess her and me at the time to see if we continue til she is two, I also know that plans change and can never really be set in stone.

The more I thought about it the angrier I got, when I was pregnant with Malinda (child number 1) I was told by my mother,... (whom at the time was the most important person in my life as I was 19 and a single mum to be) that breastfeeding was to difficult and that I would be much better off at my age just formula feeding. She continued to tell me this throughout the pregnancy and added how hard it was for her trying to breastfeed and how much trouble she had with attempting to feed my brothers and I and that I was setting myself up for failure. I being naive and young believed her and never gave it a go with my daughter, in fact I became terrified of the idea of breastfeeding and even repulsed by the sight of it becoming physically sick if someone would feed their child in front of me gagging involuntary. NO I am not joking ask Sarah Mc who can verify this. I got married and fell pregnant almost right away and again did not even attempt to feed Peter who went straight on to a bottle after being born. Then my good friend Sarah had her baby Iris and I watched at first in horror but then in admiration as she breastfed her daughter without a hitch it seemed so natural and even beautiful that when I fell pregnant with baby number 3 Mikey I thought well if Sarah can do it so can I LOL!!! Whilst my experience with feeding Mikey for those 4 months was not a great one (heehee I just remembered once feeding Mikey on the breast at my mothers place and her giving me a light blanket to cover up with which always makes me laugh given she was present for all 4 of my children's births and saw a whole lot more then my boobies) I came away from it feeling more comfortable with who I was as a woman and confident I had given it my best shot and at least had the experience of breastfeeding as Mikey was going to be my last child HAHAHA.

But as you all know at the end of those 4 months I became pregnant again with Olivia. I had a horrible pregnancy emotionally with Liv I was so not ready to have another child at all let alone so quickly after Mikey being born but here she was on the way. I decided that I was going to breastfeed and was so annoyed by a family member when I was told why would I bother after all the difficulties I had with Mikey GGGRRR!!! Ignoring the comments and criticisms I was determined I was going to make it work and my husband and I thought it would really help bond Olivia and I once she was born given I was having such trouble bonding throughout the pregnancy. Olivia was born and on the breast within 15 minutes of being on the outside LOL Actually she came out with her mouth open almost looking for the boob, and she has remained there ever since and not one issue has arisen since I began feeding her 9 months ago, I have fallen in love with breastfeeding and as previously stated marvel at the awesomeness of my breasts and the fact they sustained my daughter for her first 6 months completely on their own. But again the sadness, she is the last child I will breastfeed, nope no more surprises hubby had the snip and I am sad, angry and feel completely ripped off for not having the support and encouragement to feed my other children. While I am grateful for formula especially in Mikeys case where I felt I just could not do it anymore, there really is no comparison in terms of bottle feeding vs holding your baby snugly across your chest and watching as she nurses from your body.

My 3 other children are all happy healthy and content little monkeys however I do feel like I let them down and should of sought out more information for myself like I have now that I have been feeding Livvy, rather then taking the word of one person who had had a bad experience. Hence the boobie blues question.

Also wanna say a huge THANKS to Meegs, Sarah Mc and Sazz whose long term breastfeeding efforts inspire my boobs to greatness LOL Meaning I think you are all amazing mums who are continuing to give your babies/toddlers the very best start and I hope I can follow in your footsteps. Also Thanks to God for his wonderful creation of the female body and for boobies.

A busy day with girls, giggles and hot chippies.

Yesterday Jan 7th, Team Tredinnick minus co-captain hubby (who is now back at work) had a fantastically full day busy with visits from people, babysitting my gorgeous God daughter Iris, a trip to the park for a play and some hot chip and a quick visit to Kintara's house to pick up Mikeys new cloth nappies. I love having days where we are constantly doing things it makes entertaining 4 children so much easier and thankfully my 2 little ones will sleep in the pram or wrap on the go so not much interruption to sleep routines take place!

Jo and her 3 little cherubs Molly, Lucy and Ruby arrived around 11am for a play and morning tea. The children got stuck into playing with the new cubby house and slide Lucy and Ruby took great delight in sliding toys down the slide more so then going down themselves. Morning tea quickly followed and the children (all 7 of them) crowed into the kitchen round the table and some into highchairs. Watermelon, grapes, choc wafers and BBQ rice crackers were devoured in no time. With full belly's and energy recharged the kiddies took off outside for more playtime while Jo and I had a gab. Sarah arrived a short time later with Miss Iris and dropped her off without any tears or fuss (Which impressed me). Iris joined in with the games and played well with the kids..Jo thought the house looked like a childcare centre with our kid numbers now reaching 8, poor boys were very out numbered though 2 boys and 6 girls.

It was getting close to lunch time.. well actually it was probably a little past lunch time and Jo decided to join us for a walk to the local takeaway shop where we got some hot chips and set off round the corner to the park. We sat down and once the chips where unwrapped and cooled off the seagulls (children) flew in for food. I thought it very sweet that Molly Lucy and Iris had to eat with plastic forks, such little ladies. Once lunch and juices where gone the children hit the play equipment hard. Giggles could be heard throughout the park . Molly was pretending to be tinker bell who is her most favorite fairy by leaning over the swing and flapping her arms it was incredibly cute. Ruby and Olivia who were both in need of a sleep powered on in their prams with no fuss they both sat watching their siblings play whilst sucking dummy's and cuddling their taggie blankets. Ruby also enjoyed a game of peek-a-boo with her mumma.

After the park we headed home and Jo took the girls home so Ruby could have her afternoon nap. The children all continued to play for a while and Iris took a short break from everyone by having a little rest (NOTE By request!!!) in Mikey's cot, I had to take photo's of this as I think it was about the 3rd time Iris had ever been in a cot ;-) Once energy levels were restored play continued with the kids becoming covered in a thin layer of dirt so a bath was much in need. By the time the baths were done Sarah had arrived to take Iris home. I was feeling a little worn out so opted out of cooking dinner and hubby picked up a vegetarian pizza (my fave).

I headed down to Kintara's place to pick up my order of cloth Nappy's and baby legs which had arrived. AAahhhh so exciting to be able to have enough cloth nappy's for Mikey to go full time in cloth now for both baby's. Woot woot. While there I drooled over Miss Stella's range of Ladybug clothing and am now planning on doing a B and E job to steal them for Olivia hee hee *jokes*

Sue ( my bestie) dropped round for coffee and to have a lesson in True Blood culture. We watched the first 2 episodes and she is now hooked hee hee VAMPIRES ARE FREAKING AWESOME!!! It was fun explaining to her who was who in the show and she left round 11pm taking with her the rest of the series on DVD for her to watch over the weekend...but I reckon she will sit and watch them all in one hit. A great day was had by all the Tredinnicks thank you so much to those who contributed to making it rich in awesomeness. *hugs*

You paid how much???!!

This afternoon I realised that the amount of money you spend on things really has nothing to do with the actual value it. Christmas this year for our children was probably a bit of a culture shock with the parents deciding that presents from Santa and Mummy and Daddy would be rather minimal.One big present from mum and dad, bits and pieces in their Santa stocking from the big red guy and a couple of "family presents" of board games and play station games. We decided this for two reasons one being we didn't have that much money and with the addition of Miss Livvy buying for 4 children plus extended family cash was tight. The second reason being that they just get SO MUCH!!! It is beyond ridiculous and we were running out of room to put things. Despite our vow of minimal (which we did stick to as best we could) we still spent more then we needed to buying more then we should of for our children. My love language is gifts..(meaning I show love by giving people gifts and receive love through receiving gifts) Read The 5 love languages by Gary Chapman to find out yours . So I find it hard to cut back on an emotional level. The children were once again overwhelmed by their presents not really knowing what to play with first, so in a way I felt like a bad parent and that I was contributing to their indecision in overloading their brains with choice.

Today however I watched as 3 out of 4 children giggled and shrieked with delight and entertained themselves and each other with 2 containers of blowing bubbles...costing a total of $4.00 It was wonderful to witness the absolute joy on their faces as they blew and popped bubbles for over half a hour. I have to admit while watching them I felt a mixture of pleasure and shame, on the one hand it was awesome to see them so happy over something so simple but on the other hand I felt guilty that I had over loaded them with "stuff" on Christmas day, when they really did not need it and can be made so happy with something little or simple.

I do love spoiling all of my children and my husband and friends with gifts but have decided that this year for birthdays and Christmas things will be much different. Parenting 4 children is difficult in terms of making sure each child gets enough one on one time so I am thinking that I might make that part of their gifts this year... choosing an outing or adventure to do just with Mummy and Daddy.I think this will make for a more pleasurable and memorable day then just rushing gifts at the kids and then leaving them to ponder what to do first.

Thats not say that you all shouldn't buy me pressies for my birthday in 18 days I am an adult and can handle the choice bawhahahahahahahaha . Have a great night Bloggers xox

So I shall name them.....

A little while ago a friend of mine had posted on Facebook all the nick names which he his wife and extended family have for his children. I thought I would be a total copy cat and do a similar thing given that I will refer to my children a lot throughout my posts and will more then likely use one of there many many nick names so here we go.

Malinda Rose Tredinnick also known as : Mini, Mouse, Mini Mouse, Min, Moo-Moo, Mini-moo,Baby girl, Chook, Chooka, Malala (pronounced Ma-la-la) (This is how Michael says Malinda) Lala, Rosey, Rose, Mini-Rose, Rosey girl, Paris Hilton,....long story for another blog post, Mal or Mel.George and Princess


Peter Philip Tredinnick also known as : Pete, Big boy, Petey, Poopa, Poops (I know not very flattering), George, Peter-poops, Elvis...(if you have seen him dance you would understand this one) Ben 10(... which he gave himself.) Genius, Genius Boy and Peter Rabbit, nut job

Michael David Tredinnick also known as : Mikey, Mikey-Moo, Mike, Cherub, Moo, Mickey D (thanks mum for that one), Mikey-Boy, Mini -Pete, Little David, Chunky, Chunka-Butt, Cheeky Chops and Fat belly boy...(NOTE This is said with love and affection not as a put down, I love my lil mans round tummy!!!)


Olivia Joy Valerie Tredinnick also known as :Livvy, Livvy -Loo, Liv, Loo-Bug, Loo-loo, Loo Loo Girl, Bug, Ladybug, Livvy-Bug, Buggy-Boo, Buggers, Boobie Girl,

An afternoon at the park.

Yesterday the Tredinnick and the Beer Family's headed off to feed the ducks and have a play at the Botanical Gardens in Frankston. The park is awesome and has a big range of climbing frames slides and swings for the kids to play on as well as big open space for things like baseball.... or what the adults thought was a good game hit the ball far and make the kids run for it hehehe!!
While we were there we ran into Jo who was there with her 3 beautiful girls Molly,Lucy and Ruby who were also enjoying the park and feeding the ducks.

After some time at the play equipment we decided to head on down to the duck pond and feed the ducks and chase away the seagulls who tried to steal all the duckies bread! Drew and Mikey who are both not yet 2 had a wonderful time eating the bread they were given to feed to the ducks at first but Drew soon learned to throw the bread into the pond however Mikey took delight in continuing to eat it and ask then ask for 'more pwease more"..very funny. The older children had a great time throwing lumps of bread to the ducks, whilst the so called grown up men in the group thought it hilarious to stand behind me and drop bits of bread so the ducks would come up in mass groups behind me... (yep I am scared of the ducks and don't like them coming to close) something everyone seem to find funny!!

Drew found a new use for the baseball bat: splashing the ducks... or trying to splat them was lots and lots of fun for him...and for the adults watching.

The 2 little ones had their mummy's in a panic as they had no fear of the water and got very close to the edge Megan and I spent a lot of our time saying "grab him grab him" and "Oh my gosh that's way to close" Once again the males thought this was funny and took bets on who was going to fall into the water first!! Khyle also thought it fun to pretend to push the little one in to the water.

Once the duck feeding frenzy was over the children feeding frenzy began and a bag of coloured candy popcorn was devoured in minutes...with some help from the adults yum yum!

After our belly's were full with sugary popcorn goodness we took a walk through the gardens it was an awesome end to a fun filled afternoon. All the children had played so well together... as usual ...with only one small outburst from Malinda (which I think is pretty good considering between the 2 families there is 7 children!!!)Thank you Beer Family for a wonderful time, we had a great day and can't wait to do it again!

The Awesome Beer Family.	The wonderful Team Tredinnick.

Real friendship for me!

So I have been thinking about relationships the last few days and the difference between friendships, acquaintances best friend relationships and people you know in passing that always receive a polite nod but never really get to know the real you and what lies in your heart. Best friends is a term that I used in high school but is one that has resurfaced in my life during the past 6 months. The dictionary defines the word BEST as follows : good, most suitable, most desirable, favourable, most excellent, most profitable.

In high school the more "friends" you had was how your popularity was measured the bigger your following the "cooler" you were. I was in a group with 8 people we were not the top of the of school hierarchy nor were we at the bottom, however I would say that despite being in this large group I often felt lonely and even isolated at times. I was in a close relationship with 1 person in our group whom I would say was my "best" friend throughout high school the rest were rather superficial but it was part of my high school experience being in a group.

As I grow older I feel the need to surround myself with only a very small group of people whom I would classify as real friends,... you know the type of people who wont judge you for leaving last nights dinner dishes on the kitchen table or for wearing day old socks, the type of person you can sit with for hours and pour your heart out to and the next day joke and be completely silly with. I have been blessed in my friend relationships of late, I have been fortunate enough to have two amazing woman in my life who can feed my soul and crack me up at the same time. Megan and Sue are two woman that I would say are my "best friends". The relationship has been built on mutual trust, love, respect, understanding and a passionate love of all things vampire...which is part of the glue that bonds us together ;-) These are the woman I can call at any time day or night who come through in a pinch with a wise word, a comforting hug, a funny joke or a big cup of coffee for one of those nights where sleep has been thwarted by crying babies or sick children.My besties know that I am there for them in any way they need me to be. These woman know who I am and what I stand for they often know my thoughts before I speak them and a bit of non verbal communication can often take place when we are all together. Our children all play well together secure that they are all loved and accepted as individuals by all the adults around them. I am comfortable and at peace with my 4 little moneys being parented and influenced by either of my besties and their children because I know that they treat there kids with respect and parent by similar values and beliefs.

This is not to underplay the role of other friends and acquaintances in my life Sarah Mac is a prime example of this, we have been friends for about 9 years and although we can go months at a time without speaking to each other in person, this is never done with malice or anger.. we are both busy mums who have interests and commitments outside our individual circles however I know that she will always have my back and vise versa. Sarah and I are on very different journeys in our lives but as our paths cross along the way we always enjoy the time we spend together as it is rich in conversation flowing with ideas for things to sew next, love and giggles from our children as the play together.

Popularity and the quest to collect "friends" on things such as facebook and my space may be well and good for a time, but of those "friends" who would you call in a crisis? Who would you first want to call to share good news with or to have a good cry with? How do these friendships fulfill you as a person and in return how do you feed into those peoples lives??
As for me I say screw popularity I choose to forgo the superficial and unfulfilling and seek meaningful connections with people whom I love and trust to speak truth into my live and that of my children's lives. Relationships that allow me to express who I truly am and that encourage me to grow as a woman, wife and mother, in return as I continue to become more of whom I was created to be I will do my very best to be the type of friend and person that I can say I am truly proud of and that the people closest around me can be proud of knowing.