Oscar starts solids

Time is flying and there hasn't been much time for updates here! Oscar is getting big and strong. Now at five and a half months, he weighs 7.5 kilograms - more than double his birth weight! This week we had some fun with food and gave him a taste of "solids". He made a lot of funny faces and was a little confused by his non-liquid lunch so we are glad we caught it on camera.

Oscar, the jolly jumper

As Oscar's head and neck control had improved we decided to try him out in the 'jolly jumper'. He took to it like a duck to water and ever since has enjoyed his time jumping. It is great for me too because it gives me my arms back for long enough to make my breakfast or have a cup of tea. 

Josie watching on as Oscar jumps

Mama's 60th Birthday in the Blue Mountains

In early September we celebrated Tim's Mum, Gerry's birthday by travelling to the Blue Mountains for our first family getaway. We stayed in a beautiful big house with views looking out over the mountains. Oscar was very well behaved and lapped up all the attention from his aunties, uncles and grandparents. I managed to sneak away from him for a couple of hours too and enjoyed a very relaxing massage at a local day spa. The weather was pretty chilly at night but we were kept warm by the lovely open fire.

Oscar enjoying his hand-knitted beanie

Happy family in front of the incredible view from the back yard

Oscar was mesmerised by Michael's music

Oscar's secret language

A couple of weeks ago, Oscar started speaking to us with a whole range of 'words' that only he can understand.  He's now making 'sentences' out of these words so I thought I'd capture a happy moment on camera.

Tim graduates!

On Friday the 19th August, we all made the trip up to Sydney for Tim's graduation at the University of New South Wales. After more than 4 years of hard work Tim finally graduated with (a well deserved) Class 1 Honours in Landscape Architecture. It was a pretty cold and rainy day in Sydney but it was really nice to be back in the city, this time with Oscar. Oscar was quite well behaved throughout the day and even sat quietly on our laps at dinner out at John and Gerry's house in Camden. He also showed off some lovely smiles to everyone as a token of his appreciation. It was a long day but a very enjoyable one!

Oscar took the graduation very seriously!

Life with Oscar - Weeks 6 to 9

We have now celebrated two months since Oscar was born. During the last few weeks Oscar has become even more responsive by smiling, copying our faces, following the cats with his eyes and 'cooing' in his own little baby language. He had his first vaccinations and 6 week check up. He weighed in at a hefty 5kg and 59cm long, putting him in the 50th percentile for weight and the 75th percentile for height - so we may have a basketballer on our hands! There have been a few trying times as Oscar developed reflux which has made him irritable (he certainly lived up to his Sesame Street namesake) and uncomfortable for a few weeks and the only solution to his crying was to carry him around. Needless to say we are getting some very good arm muscles. He seems to be improving now though and turning into a more relaxed and settled baby.

Here are a few of our favourite photos from the last couple of weeks.

Oscar Wabbit finally fits into his Pumpkin Patch hat

Oscar and Mummy

Fast asleep in Daddy's arms

Enjoying a cuddle from Nanny Wendi

Love those chubby cheeks!

Wondering why Mummy is taking all of these photos!

Smiling!

Oscar Smiles!

Between weeks 4 and 5 Oscar started giving us some gorgeous gummy smiles but we always seemed just that bit too slow to capture them on camera. Last week I finally managed to capture a few little smiles on video!

Oscar the 'Fairy Princess'

On Saturday night we went to visit Aunty Sam and Gen. Realising that we had forgotten an essential item – a dummy for Oscar, Tim raced off to the shops to buy some new ones. He returned with two pink dummies with pictures of fairies on them, and the words ‘fairy princess’ written on them. When I questioned him about it he said he hadn’t noticed (could ‘baby brain’ be the culprit?). So Oscar is learning to break free from gender stereotypes at an early age.

Oscar the 'fairy princess'

Life with Oscar - Weeks 4 to 5

Week 4

The fourth week was a trying one as Tim had to go back to work and Oscar was still insisting on being a ‘vampire baby’. For me, it was a harsh realisation that getting even the smallest things done, like making my own lunch, were virtually impossible with a baby who refused to sleep – day and night. The vibrating bouncer became my saviour and allowed me to have a quick shower or gobble some breakfast while he napped for 10 or 20 minutes at a time. We still managed to get out of the house for lunch with Aunty Sam, Aunty Gen, Nanny and Pop and also had a lovely visit from Aunty Jess. As if to make up for the sleepless (days and) nights, Oscar started giving us some gorgeous gummy smiles – although we are yet to catch them on camera!

Vampire baby, finally asleep in Tim's arms

Posing for the camera

While Oscar turned into a vampire, Tim turned into a wolfman

Josie, wondering who stole her spot

Week 5

Determined to start this week off on a better note, we tried to start a ‘routine’ for him (from Tizzie Hall’s book Save Our Sleep) that had been recommended by a number of people. It was good in that it gave me a structure to my day and did help him sleep a little better during the day, but still failed to change his 3am preferred bedtime. Fortunately with the Tour de France on TV, Tim was having some late nights of his own and would rock him to sleep after I had gone to bed which helped me get enough sleep. This week was a much happier one for all of us and even though the routine was not entirely successful, the everyday things were getting a little easier and less daunting.    

Trying to break free from the bassinet

Showing Mama Gerry his little smiles

Slept right through a visit from Cam

Finally growing into the special jacket Nanny Wendi bought for him

Life with Oscar - Weeks 1 to 3

The first few weeks of Oscar’s life seemed to fly by so fast so we thought we'd share a few of our favourite pictures from the early days.

Week 1

He came out crying and didn’t stop for most of the week (or so it seemed). We initially felt that he had two settings ‘sleep’ and ‘cry’, with nothing else in between but as the days went on he settled down. Being home and in our own surroundings was a great change but also a steep learning curve for all three of us!

First day home from hospital and tucked in bed

Tiger's first encounter with baby-kind

Oscar bear strapped in and ready to go on his first 'outing' - to register his birth

Sleeping like a baby

Week 2 

Oscar’s second week began with lots of visits from family and friends, eager to have a cuddle. He was still sleeping a lot at this stage and was doing relatively well overnight, sleeping for 4 hours at a time and then settling straight after a feed which allowed us to get enough (broken) sleep.

9 days old

Getting a cuddle from Uncle Michael

Not too sure about this bath thing

Week 3

Oscar’s third week was Tim’s last week before he had to return to work. It was around this time that Oscar changed his sleep routine and decided to become a party animal – wanting to stay up until 3am each night (which we are still waiting for him to grow out of). Despite being heavily sleep deprived, we made the most of it and were able to get out of the house most days. We enjoyed a lovely outing to the Mount Kembla Pub with Aunty Sam and Aunty Gen, a lunch at the Nan Tien Temple and Oscar attended his first party for his little friend Taj who turned 2!

As close to a family photo as we could get

Fast asleep at Aunty Sam and Gen's house

Oscar and Dad with their matching tops

Arrrrrrrr pirate baby says 'put me to bed'

Welcome to the world Oscar Flynn!

At about 3am on Saturday June the 18^th, one day before Oscar’s due date, I woke up in some pain and feeling really nauseous. A couple of hours later we called Wollongong Hospital and were told to come in to be looked at. With all the Braxton Hicks and other random pains I’d become used to it was not as easy as you’d think to tell when it was the real deal. We arrived at the hospital around 6am and were put on a monitor which showed that I was having contractions. Not long after the midwife ran me a hot bath to soak in until things progressed further. Several hours passed sitting in the bath, with the contractions not progressing very much. By midday I was feeling pretty anxious and this was not helped by the blood-curdling screams of the woman in the room next door who was delivering without pain relief. I was moved to a quieter room where I was again hooked up to the monitors. The contractions still weren’t really progressing and eventually, due to a combination of factors, it was decided that a caesarean would be necessary.

Tim and I were both absolutely exhausted so we did our best to get a few winks of sleep until 6pm when they started prepping me for the surgery. I had already been given the epidural earlier, and despite my fear of big needles, in the scheme of things it was actually relatively painless and provided complete pain relief. At around 6.15pm I was wheeled in to the operating room with Tim. There was a large screen in front of us so neither of us could actually see the surgery. Tim was instructed to stay firmly on my side of the screen – a policy they implemented after several partners had passed out on the operating room floor!

The surgery began and while I couldn’t feel any pain, I could feel some odd poking and prodding as they pressed on my abdomen and moved my muscles out of the way. Within five minutes, at 6.20pm, we were relieved to hear a loud cry as Oscar was pulled out (something we don’t enjoy hearing as much now!). What a shock it must have been for him, after nine months in the warmth and darkness to be pulled out under bright lights in a chilled operating theatre! 

Oscar Flynn Reis-Vyse, born 6.20pm, 18th June 2011

He was held up for us to look at before being taken away and assessed (he was given an APGAR score of 9, and then 10 five minutes later). Still crying, he was brought over to us for a quick cuddle before he and Tim were taken to the nurses’ station to be cleaned up, weighed and measured. He weighed in at 3.185kg (just over 7 pounds) and 50cm in length.

It took about 20 minutes to stitch me up before I was wheeled to recovery and checked on and off for the following hour. All had gone well so I was then taken to the maternity ward for more cuddles. We were both exhausted but so excited that finally our little Oscar was here!

A few hours old

Oscar and I stayed in hospital for 3 days and had lots of lovely visitors. Tim was there to help each day for as many hours as they would let him stay. Being in a shared room, it was hard to catch up on that much needed sleep, but all in all it wasn't too bad and gave me ample time to take loads of pictures of our gorgeous boy!

Our precious Oscar

Tim enjoying those first cuddles

Cuddles with a a very tired mummy

On Tuesday we were able to bring him home. We dressed him in his warmest suit (the smallest size - 00000), strapped him into his car seat (which looked comically oversized with this tiny thing in it) and off we went into the sunset!

Dressed and ready to go home

Strapped into his capsule and ready to roll

Oscar's room

In the lead up to Oscar’s arrival Tim and I had fun decorating his nursery. Neither of us are the ‘baby blue’ types of people, so instead we opted for a bright turquoise and orange colour scheme. My two and a bit weeks of leave came in handy and, whilst bored and awaiting the inevitable, I kept myself distracted making bunting flags, cushions, a rug and a toy owl. Aunty Jess and Uncle Michael impressed everyone with their skills by making a change table, while Nanny Wendy painted a beautiful picture to go above it.

The beautiful sustainable timber cot given to us by our good friends, Cameron and Jamie

Colourful bunting flags

The change table made by Uncle Michael and Aunty Jess

A cushion for my nursing chair and Nanny Wendi's painting behind

An owl friend for Oscar

Our babies before baby

It’s common knowledge that Tim and I are well and truly ‘under the paw’ when it comes to our three cats, Josie, Tiger and Eva. Yes, we are those weird ‘cat people’ who talk to, sleep with and occasionally dress up our furry babies.

Josie has been my kitty companion since long before Tim and I ever met. She was rescued by my mum, Wendi, as part of an unwanted litter. When the owners of Josie’s mother adopted her they were told she had been desexed, but got quite a surprise when she gave birth to four tiny kittens. Unable to keep them, they called the local vet who in turn called Wendi and we collected them from Wombarra at the age of 6 weeks. As soon as I saw her I absolutely had to have her (call it love at first sight?). She’s now 8 years old (but still a kitten at heart) and of the three cats is the Princess or Alpha Cat.

Josie enjoying the sunshine

We had been talking about getting Tim his own special cat (Josie wasn’t into being shared at that stage) and in August 2008, as we were preparing to move into the house in Newtown, I was sent an email with pictures of a litter of kittens. The kittens and their semi-wild mother had been rescued from the streets of Blacktown by WLPA and were in foster care. With his stunning bold stripes and gorgeous big eyes I knew he was the kind of cat Tim would fall for so the following week, we went to visit 9 week old Tiger and his sister. Although he was still very frightened at this stage, the bond was instant and it was clear that we would be taking him home. Tiger and Josie got along well from the beginning, although being a rambunctious kitten, he copped beatings from the ‘iron paw’ on more than a few occasions. He eventually fell into line and now is the most placid of the three. He loves to curl up on the bed in between us at night and is notorious for stealing and hiding the kitchen sponges (and has now moved on to baby’s clothes). Tiger has the most incredible bond with Tim and we are sure he thinks he is Tim’s real son.

Who could resist this face?

Tim and Tiger have a strange relationship

We weren’t really intending to get a third cat however in 2009 a group of adorable, tiny four week old ginger kittens ‘fell into my lap’ (as they do in my line of work), and along came cat number three - Eva. Another rescued kitty, Eva was born to a mother cat who had been dumped in someone’s backyard in Dundas in Western Sydney. We brought Eva home to the unit in Alexandria at 6 weeks old and she immediately adopted Tiger as her mother and Tiger eagerly took up the role. He has been looking out for her ever since and they are still like two peas in a pod. Eva is probably the quirkiest of the three with her bizarre love of breath mints and will keep herself occupied for hours on end with just a scrunched up piece of paper.   

Baby Eva

Eva with her surrogate mother, Tiger

The Journey to Oscar

When we found out we were expecting in late 2010 Tim was in the final throws of his Landscape Architecture degree and I was working full time as the Office Manager of The World League for Protection of Animals in Gladesville. We were living it up in the inner city in our ‘cosy’ (real estate-speak for ‘size of a shoebox’) unit in Alexandria. We had a great time there but we knew that life in a one bedroom unit with two adults, three cats and a baby would be the real world equivalent of sardines in a can.

As if Christmas time wasn’t chaotic enough, on December 23^rd I made a snap decision to sell the unit (we had originally intended to rent it out) and the following day it was officially listed on the market, with our first inspection a few days later.

In late January we went on a ‘last hurrah’ road trip (or ‘babymoon’, if you will) to Byron Bay and Noosa. We had so much fun although it was slightly overshadowed by the stress of the unit being on the market and juggling the prospective buyers. On the last day of our trip, driving south toward Sydney, we received a phone call to confirm that the unit had officially been sold! We were really excited and relieved to have the sale behind us and quickly moved on to seriously looking to buy something more suited to our needs. We decided that a move further south to Wollongong would be our best option as we could get a lot more for our money and we would be a lot closer to friends and family. Within a month of the sale of the unit we found a cute cedar-clad pole home in Cordeaux Heights on a nice bushy block with beautiful views over Mount Kembla. We put in an offer, did the usual haggling and within two weeks we had officially secured our new home. For only a marginally higher price than we sold the unit for, we traded up to a four bedroom house.

Our little tree house in Cordeaux Heights

In the meantime, until I finished up at work, we lived in Greystanes in Western Sydney in my nanna’s house which we had been renovating for the last several months. It was great to have somewhere to live but if I ever have to travel on the M4 again (or remove wallpaper for that matter!) it will be too soon!

Over the Easter long weekend we packed up the cats and took a mini-holiday  to stay in our new abode (mind you, sleeping on a half-inflated blow up mattress when 7 months pregnant does not make for an ideal ‘holiday’). We intended to paint only a couple of rooms and remove the worst of the questionable décor, a remnant from the early 90s, but ended up painting the entire house!  

With the help of our families (yet again!) we moved in a couple of weeks later and have been enjoying a more peaceful and spacious existence in our little treehouse ever since. It was a big change waking to the sound of cockatoos and kookaburras instead of police sirens but somehow we managed to adjust!   

We had had so much fun living in the Inner West for the last few years – first in Newtown and then Alexandria – so it was sad to leave it all behind, but having a stable place to live and the people we care about close by has made the journey well and truly worth it. 

The view from the balcony

The view out across the garden from the balcony

Our lounge room, after a lot of painting!

The feature wall in the lounge room

The kitchen/dining area - much more spacious than what we were used to!

The main bedroom, post wallpaper removal