She's here! (Pretend I said that 3 months ago)

Our young miss has been in the world for a few months now, meaning I've been a bit tardy in sharing her story. (I'm loving not having to worry about deadlines at the moment, in case you can't tell.) So...  Introducing Rose Amelia:

Brand new bubba.

She was in no hurry to make her arrival. We hadn't wanted to find out if we were to have a boy or a girl, so the delay prompted lots of speculation - some said the baby must be a boy because it was being lazy, others that it was a girl because women are (apparently) never on time. 
But when I was nine days overdue the wonders of induction got her moving. Though she was still in anything but a rush - it took a C section to convince her to finally grace us with her presence, and she did so on the afternoon of May 1.
She was born at the height of a Kalgoorlie baby boom and during our hospital stay the maternity ward had only one bed spare. Busy!
Since that life-changing day we've obviously had our share of tears, joy, smiles and spew, as well as -  of course - photos...

I visited Perth last week. And so did wet weather

The view from my apartment. Ignore the bleakness of the car park and the
rain, and you can imagine it is actually quite a nice spot.

I paid my first visit to Perth last week. Have you been there? I didn't see much besides rain, clouds and traffic, which I could have seen here at Coolgardie (except for the traffic).
I was there because work decided they wanted to spend several thousand dollars sending me on a course and covering accommodation and travel while at it. And who am I to argue?
I had a great time, and am grateful to my employer, on a number of accounts.
The course was officially titled the Surface Ventilation Officer course. I know what you're thinking. BOR-RING. But it was really quite interesting. And for someone who's main career to date has primarily involved regurgitating details on Katie Perry's latest tattoo or when the community crochet fair is to be held, parts of it were downright fascinating. And I look forward to actually being a ventilation officer.
Then there was the accommodation. No bland hotel here - they put me up in a gorgeous apartment right on the water in Fremantle. I could have happily spent the entire week there gazing at the surf, but obviously had to make the 20-minute drive to class each day. Which I completed in a zippy little hire car - also courtesy of work's credit card. Bonus!
Navigating myself through a strange city - aka trying to read the map while driving and getting thoroughly lost and confused on more than one occasion - clearly posed a challenge. But it was in fact much easier than directing my stress-head of a husband behind the wheel.
He even gets quite a bit freaked. Even, at times, in Coolgardie. Which has approximately eight streets and peak hour means three other cars.
For example, the other day he wanted me to show him where the town's medical centre was as I'd been there but he was going for the first time later that week. This followed:
Me: "Well go along the highway and when you get to the street Bob lives on turn left, then -"
Him, interrupting in mild panic: "It's on that side of the highway?! I thought it was on the other side!"
Me: "No, it's on the left side".
Him: "Oh. But I thought it was on the right side!"
Me, getting tetchy: "Well if you know where it is and it's on the right side, just go to the right side."
Him: "No no, for some reason I thought it was on the right but I'm probably wrong."
We turned left and - surprise! - successfully located the medical centre.
But anyway, back to my week in Perth.
The highlight was catching up with an old friend. My best friend in high school. Whom I hadn't seen in years. It was beyond fabulous to see her again.
I also got together with another friend and her little guy, whom I hadn't seen since our road trip last year. This too was great fun, especially as they took me to a nearby chocolate factory for lunch.
There were some downsides during my stay. My Kindle crapped itself. And the bloody Telstra pre-paid internet modem I use when travelling refused to work. So I had no books and no internet stuff/blogs to read. I had to resort to watching TV!
I am not much of a TV viewer and feel completely lost when I have nothing to read, so this was quite traumatic.
And as lovely as the harbour apartment was, it had one of those stupid beds on wheels. Every time you so much as wiggle a toe it goes scooting wildly across the carpet, coming to rest on the other side of the room. I blame it for killing my Kindle. It had been functioning just fine until the wilful bed upped and moved, dislodging the Kindle (which I had propped on the bed against the wall) and sending it crashing to the floor.
And, as noted at the beginning of the post, the weather was not great and prevented me having a good look around. But I did take a quick stroll through Fremantle and - along with about 3000 other people - partook of the delights at the aforementioned chocolate factory near Midland.

Have you ever had a fantastic work-sponsored trip? Or been to Perth? If so, what do you recommend I see and do upon my (as-yet unscheduled) return?

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Wordless Wednesday: Old friends

Nothing compares to old friendships. Last week I got the chance to catch up with my best friend from high school, who I hadn't seen since 2006. It was the highlight of a pretty special week.
Here we are in 1994 (or maybe it was 1995?). Amanda is back row, far right, and I am front row, far right.

Back in the day: My friends and I at a birthday party. Clearly we didn't
have Facebook to teach us how to, ahem, 'pose' like today's teenagers.

An interesting side note is that for much of our high school years the guy right at the back was besotted with the girl on far left in the front row. They are now married, and have beautiful a little family.

Linking up again with Trish's Wordless Wednesday at My Little Drummer Boys. Thanks Trish!

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The great (proposed) baby tour

How many friends and family members of yours have had babies in the past two years or so?
For some - for example you, Pop, if you're still reading - it may not be a whole lot.
But for those of you close to my age, I suspect the number will be quite high. Scarily high if you haven't gone down that path yet, and are starting to wonder if there's something wrong with you for delaying while all around you people are procreating madly.
Because let me tell you, there has been a massive boom in my world. Just this week I received the news a uni friend of mine is expecting her second baby (congratulations Rachel and Jason!).
This comes only days after one of Paul's brothers and his partner welcomed another daughter to their family. Congrats to you guys too! And mere weeks after another member of the Mayall clan, as well as two former workmates of mine, gave birth. Congratulations all round, basically.
Expand the timeframe to the past two years and the stork has been flapping about all over the place.
And the tragedy in all this, as far as I'm concerned? I've met only a handful of these little miracles. I live too far away from most of them. But that's what I get for moving firstly to one end of the country (Cairns) and then the other (Kalgoorlie) rather than staying put.
So I've had a genius idea: I should go on a baby tour! Traverse the country and meet all these new little citizens.

Forget the parents - its the offspring I want to see (joking!). I'd love to catch up with anyone I haven't seen since before they became a mother. And not just because I have a multitude of questions for them. Though that is part of it, given the time we decided we'd start trying for parenthood is drawing close ('EEEK!' doesn't begin to cover it).
Questions like:

• How long did it take you to get pregnant? Especially if you were, like me, on the wrong side of 30 as far as fertility is concerned. This is the one uppermost in my mind, it being the first step and all.
• How was the birth? Did you want to die, or do your insides only go a little bit cold and watery when you think back to those hours/days?
• Did you suffer any complications or (please god, no) a miscarriage or stillbirth? If so, how was/is this managed/being managed medically and emotionally? 
• How did breastfeeding work out for you?
• How did your boss and workplace respond to the news and, if you took maternity leave, what was your experience when it came to organising it? The same question applies to arranging post-leave work hours. 
• Did someone in your family nab your favourite name before you could? Or did you proudly inform a friend of your baby's name and they responded with 'Oh I had a cat called that once. Was a horrible creature'?
• Did you join a mothers group?
• Did you find out the sex of the baby during pregnancy?
• Don't you wish you had twins? Or sextuplets? Oh, you don't. 
• Do you get sick of being asked about pregnancy and children?

Several mums have already shared their knowledge on some of these topics with me, but you can never have too much information, I say.
So, Qantas or Jetstar, or Countrylink even, fancy sponsoring me on a nation-wide baby tour?

Would any of you like to join me on this (at this stage purely hypothetical) mission? And if you have any answers to the above questions I'd love to hear them.