And on we go

Things are just trundling along here, same old, same old. Sophie's still sleeping in bed with me day and night. I'm still feeling pretty frazzled. Despite the positive outcomes of her assessment I can't help but notice that she seems to have been slowed in her crawling efforts by the fact that she can put all her weight on her right arm, but not her left.

I've been knocked around a bit by the whole Ngala experience. I came out of it feeling stressed to the max and I'm struggling for equilibrium now.

We sat down and had a good chat today about what we can do to make things a bit better. I feel like I'm treading water at the moment, not achieving anything I want to. All my energy is going into baby sleep, and everything I have left is taken up with wrangling an increasingly mobile baby.

I've been on anti-depressants for months, and was regularly seeing a psychologist in Albany, though I've let that slip here. But I'm very aware of the signals that things are sliding, and I think they're doing so at the moment. So, I have plans.

Firstly, I'm going to take some time each Saturday to go off on my own to the library and write. Writing has been my major hobby for years, and before Sophie arrived I was working on the second draft of my first novel. Not having the time to focus on writing is driving me nuts, so I'll take a few hours each weekend and do something about that.

Second, I don't feel like I'm contributing much to the world at the moment. I know that's just me- I'm contributing Sophie's upbringing to the world, and that's something special. But I want to do something more, so I'm going to start volunteering a couple of hours a week. I've looked into Volunteering WA, which has positions all over the place, and I've found that the nursing home I volunteered at as a teenager is looking for people again. There's also a local historic museum looking for volunteers, which would fit nicely with my professional background.

Those two things will, I think, make me feel a lot better.

One other thing that's making me feel better is that Sophie has done much better with sleeping over the last couple of nights- last night she was in her own cot until 1:30am; tonight for the first time in nearly two months she's been asleep in her cot since 6:30pm with only two wakeups so far (it's now 9:30pm).

Anyway- I've spent the last three posts complaining about various things, so to make it up here are some cute Sophie photos from the last few weeks:

Sophie discovers something new to do with her mobile- that's her mid-action expression as she whacks the guys as they go past


Sophie in a contemplative mood over her soccer ball, about to give it a chomping:


Rugged up in her baby dressing gown on a very cold winter morning:


Every single one of those toys started out in the basket, and she took them out one by one (I'm thinking we need less toys in the basket!):


Sophie still loves her baths- water, water everywhere once she's done: