Tag: Feelings

Photo Friday: Celebrating a Decade of Marriage

Renee BartonLeave a comment

Today marks quite a significant milestone for us. It is 10 years ago today that we started our married life together.

To celebrate we are spending an entire day and night together, just us. Tonight we will spend the night in the same hotel we stayed at on our wedding night. I must admit, as much as I’m excited about our plans for today, I’m also very excited about a solid night sleep!

But to mark the occasion we thought we’d take a little trip down memory lane and share some photos from our adventures over the last 10 years.

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One thing is for sure. We have definitely got thinner, more attractive and better hair cuts (Kaine!) over the years!

My worst day to date as a parent?

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

Let’s talk about Saturday.

A day that will go down in our short stint as new parents, as probably one of the hardest days we’ve had to deal with.

To be honest with you, it was probably the first time since Jesse was born where I genuinely 100% questioned if I could do this, if this parenting gig was just all too hard and whether I should just quit and leave.

The day started out ordinary enough. Jesse woke up happy as he normally does. We got ready for gym. We dropped Jesse off at Nanny and Poppy’s on the way to gym. And then…

Well, then the drama starts… It was like we had picked up a completely different child to the one we had dropped off earlier that morning.

And for the rest of that morning, we had a very, very, very cranky boy. We just couldn’t work out what was wrong!!!

There was uncontrollably crying. There was a bloody nose (the result of a lot of nose wiping due to his runny nose and the fact that he had accidentally scratched himself around his nostril). There was grazed knees from when he fell over earlier in the day. There was writhing in pain. There was arching his back and kicking away from us as we tried to hold and comfort him. There was teething pain symptoms.

For some reason, it all just seemed to explode all at the one time… And it all just became a little too much.

With everything that was happening with Jesse, Renee and I then started arguing and yelling at each other which, given the circumstances, wasn’t helping the situation.

So with everything that had happened and everything that was still happening, I got changed into some yard clothes and left the house. Now I didn’t leave altogether, I just left the house because I knew I wasn’t helping the situation.

So I grabbed the weed killer and lawn feed, headed outside and started working on the lawn.

By the time I was finished and came back inside, Jesse was sound asleep, and the house was quiet again.

I just hoped to god that when he woke up, he was going to be back to his happy self again. And what do you know, when he woke, he was indeed back to his happy self. It was like the morning had never happened. But both Renee and I knew it had happened. And we were both bearing scars as a result!

Was it my worst day to date as a parent? Probably! But you know what, us as a human race have the great ability to learn from our past experiences. So I feel that because I’ve now experienced a day like I did on Saturday, that I will be able to approach the situation better the next time round.

But hey, let’s keep our fingers crossed that there won’t be a next time and that it will all be smooth sailing from here.

…Keep dreaming Kaine. Keep dreaming…

This Time Around

Renee Barton1 Comment

I just knew.

I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but I just had a feeling. So when the first couple of pregnancy tests came back negative I wasn’t bothered. A far cry from how I felt when I would get a negative test when trying the first time. I sensed that Kaine was feeling pretty confident this month too.

We had decided back in January that we wanted to get straight into trying for another baby. Jesse was 7 months old. It seemed a tad crazy but we had to be prepared that it might take a while again. Plus we knew that chances were slim straight away anyway because I was still breastfeeding and my cycle hadn’t yet returned.

Over the next few months we weaned and four cycles later I couldn’t shake the feeling that we had been successful. I took another test and a beautiful yet faint second pink line confirmed my suspicions. It only took four months… I swallowed hard at the realisation that I was now that woman that long term TTC’ers want to throat punch. I know all too well how that feels.

I couldn’t wait to surprise Kaine with the news, and I had a plan to do so the following day. So when he asked me if I had got my period yet, I lied. I could sense his disappointment which only fed my excitement to tell him.

Thankfully, it all went to plan and I surprised him with the news that Jesse was going to be a big brother.

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One of many outtakes from our ‘Pregnancy Announcement Shoot’

Fast forward a bit over a week, I went to the doctor who confirmed the test result and I went for a dating scan. I left the scan feeling confident. There was a gestational sac, its not Ectopic, however, it is early days and there is not yet a foetal pole to measure. I’m told its normal for this early and to come back in about two weeks.

But the doubt starts to creep in. My mind races with questions. Is there no baby in there because there isn’t one? Suddenly I’m protective with the news. I was so excited to tell our immediate families but now, I’m not so sure. We keep it our little secret for a bit longer.

Fast forward a couple of months and the secret is out. All is going well, and now that I’m not feeling like crap all the time, the excitement is starting to kick back in.

This time around I think I’m both more excited, and more terrified. Excited because I know how wonderful having a baby and being a mum is, but terrified because I know how hard it is.

We could not be happier though. No doubt these next six months will fly by, but we will take joy in our time as a family of three while we wait for Baby Barton #2 to join us.

Irritating Things Dad’s Do Through The Night

Renee BartonLeave a comment

I don’t know if it’s the same in other households but way back in the beginning of this whole parenting thing we agreed that I would be the main bearer of the night shift in our house.

And I’m really fine with it. Kaine gets up early to go to work through the week and my job is to satisfy the whims of our precious little one (who is now not so little at 16 months!).

However, that doesn’t mean I’m not driven crazy from time to time with the night antics that occur in our house.

With a child that has only slept through the night a handful of times, I am up at least once if not more every night. And there are definitely some things that Kaine does through the night that irritates me to no end.

Here’s a few irritating things dad’s do throughout the night. Or maybe it’s just my husband…

1. Sleeps. Yup, there is nothing more irritating than waking up for the third time in as many hours to feed or soothe a bub while husband sleeps soundly and blissfully unaware.

2. The passive-aggressive rollover. This manoeuvre is designed to let you know you’ve disturbed his sleep but he’s not actually willing to wake and offer help. There’s just a very loud sigh from his side of the bed followed by an angry rollover and tug on the doona.

3. States the bloody obvious. When the teething toddler is screaming blue murder in the middle of the night and no amount of pats on the bottom or cuddles can fix it, Mum begins to administer pain relief (which could only be made easier by putting the child in a straight jacket) when dad comes out in his undies, rubbing his eyes and says “why don’t you just give him some nurofen already”? If looks could kill….

4. Pretends to be asleep even when it’s the weekend. It wouldn’t be too much to expect that dad might handle the early morning bottle on a weekend right? Wrong! I’ll get up again shall I??? Oh, do you want me to get him he says knowing that you’re already half way out of the bed.

5. Complains about being tired. Um, excuse me? You don’t know the meaning of the word!

Like I said… It might be just my husband who does these things. But geez, on a really bad night I do admit to wanting to stab him in the (shut) eye with a fork!

And god help me, if he comes out in his undies at 2am in the morning again, directing me to give Jesse nurofen after another terrible night of trying to settle him and get him back to sleep, I may be driven to cut off what got us into this situation in the first place!

Okay, that could just be the sleep deprivation talking.

Or is it?

I love you, darling.

Are we bad parents?

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

Just recently, there seems to be a lot of chatter in the news about children and screen time on electronic devices such as tablets, smart phones and even television.

Now I know that this topic isn’t exactly a new one by any means. But because this hot topic has hit the news outlets again, it got me thinking about how we do things in our house. Are we ‘Pro’ or ‘Anti’ screen time? Are we doing right by Jesse when it comes screen time? And are we bad parents if we let Jesse have screen time?

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Photo: Getty Images
Now there are two recent articles that I stumbled across on this subject, that I found quite interesting.

The first, an article by the New York Post titled ‘It’s ‘digital heroin’: How screens turn kids into psychotic junkies‘. This article talks about how screen time can be extremely detrimental to kids development and even uses a real life example of a mother who found her 6 year old son in a trance from having too much time on his iPad playing Minecraft.

The second, an article titled ‘Lisa Wilkinson says parents who let kids under five use screens are ‘crazy’‘. An article (and associated video) about how one of Australia’s most well-known morning presenters thinks parents who let their children have access to screens before they are five years old are “crazy” and that this lack of discipline will “come back to bite”.

So after reading these articles, I decided to do a little googling to see if I could find any common ground regarding if, and how much screen time should kids be having.

At this point I will say this, we are well aware that when it comes to kids development, nothing can replace the amazing benefits of active and outdoor play, reading books, educational toys etc etc. And these are all definitely activities we encourage Jesse to participate in everyday.

But, on the other hand, we do allow Jesse to have some screen time. It’s not a lot, but after these latest articles, we are again wondering if we are doing the right thing in letting him have this screen time.

So what does google say? Well it appears that the general consensus on many Government websites relating to parenting is, that children under two should simply steer clear of the screen altogether. Further to this, children aged 2-5 should have no more than an hour a day, and children aged 5-18 should have no more than two hours a day.

Now in response to this I say good luck getting a teenager to have no more than 2 hours a day of screen time. I will also say that many people believe that screens are just part of modern day parenting.

But after this google search my biggest concern now, is are we bad parents? Jesse is only 16 months old and we let him have screen time. And not only that, are we creating lifelong bad habits with Jesse by letting him have this screen time?

Now I will say that having an iPad in the car was a saving grace for us when Jesse was younger due to the fact he absolutely HATED the car. The only way we could get him to settle and not cry the whole drive, was to hang the iPad on the back of the chair with some Peppa Pig or The Wiggles playing. It would instantly settle him and stop him crying.

But now, Jesse has gotten into the habit of grabbing our phones, climbing onto our lap and waiting for episodes of Peppa Pig to watch. And while it’s incredibly cute, it’s a little worrying that maybe he is starting to expect screen time.

However, while he loves his Peppa Pig, he also loves to grab our hands and lead us directly to either the front or back door so he can go outside and play. He LOVES being outside, so much so that there has often been tantrums thrown because he couldn’t go outside when it was dark out.

Back onto screen time though, I have to admit that we also almost constantly have the television on of an evening and night. And while it’s mostly ABC Kids, again I am starting to wonder if the television should be turned off in favour of play and story time before he goes to bed.

With all this said however, it will be interesting to hear what everyone else’s thoughts on this topic are.

Do you let your children have screen time?

If so, how much screen time do you allow them to have?

If these recent articles have taught me anything, its that I need to be a little more proactive when it comes to Jesse and his screen time, versus having active and outdoor play, reading books and playing with toys.

In the end, both Renee and I know how we want to raise Jesse. But it is good to get a reminder about things like the negative impacts screen time can have.

Sunday Not-So-Fun Day

Renee BartonLeave a comment

Here’s a question. Why do they make toddler shoes so f%#*ing hard to put on?!!

Allow me to set the scene for you. 

It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon and we have a 1st birthday party to go to. We are already running late. Jesse is grumpy because he woke up too soon from what is usually a two hour nap. Kaine is just now deciding to make his lunch when it’s time to go. And I’m feeling just generally pissed off. I hate every item of clothing in my wardrobe and my hair looks like shit due to crappy, rainy weather. 

Needless to say tensions were running pretty high already. 

And then it was time to put Jesse’s shoes on. Now that he’s walking we need to put shoes on him more often and I thought, given the weather, his cute little work boots that he hasnt worn yet would be perfect. 

I checked the size against his foot and am satisfied that they will be a perfect fit for him now as previously they have been too big. 

I sat him on my lap and began squishing his foot into the first boot. After a bit of a struggle, pushing, pulling and wriggling I finally managed to get it on. I exhaled with relief and exhaustion. But it was short lived as I picked up the next one, took a deep breath and prepared to do it all again for the other foot. 

After a few minutes of more pushing and pulling I was still no closer to getting the bastard shoe on. I expressed my frustration with a few expletives and Kaine came to my rescue. 

Well, he has even less patience than I do and soon things are getting very heated. I wouldn’t have wanted to be that shoe that is for sure. Beads of sweat are gathering on his brow as he forcefully tries to squeeze Jesse’s foot into the boot. 

And then Kaine slams said shoe onto the bench, rips off the other one and throws them both down the hallway and into Jesse’s room.


Meanwhile, this whole time Jesse has been relatively accommodating and wondering what all the fuss is about. 

We throw some slip on shoes into his bag and pile into the car, both still fuming. 

It would have been absolutely hilarious to witness all of this going on. So any flies on our walls, we hope you enjoyed the show. 

But here’s a neat idea for a business. Design some kids shoes that you can actually get on the kids feet!

Guest Blogger: Sam Goodwin with ’12 Months with Twins’

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

Back in March of this year, we had the absolute pleasure to host a guest blogger right here on NSSLOU. That guest blogger was Sam Goodwin.

Sam told us her inspirational story of the birth of, and the first 6 months with, premature twins. You can read Sam’s blog post, ‘6 months in, 6 months out’ here.

Well, just in case you haven’t figured it out, this month her twins turn the big ONE! And we are delighted to have Sam back on our blog today, giving us an update on how things have been since her last guest blog, and what life is like now with one year old twins.

So again, please show Sam some love for the bravery to share her story publicly, and maybe we might be able to have more guest bloggers here on NSSLOU in the future.

You can find Sam on Facebook here and on Instagram here.

’12 Months with Twins’ by Sam Goodwin

Today my 24 weekers turn one!

This whole year has been a roller coaster ride that’s for sure.

After 104 days in hospital, we finally made it home. But we still had many issues we had to address in order to stay home.

Feeding issues and weight gain were our main struggles at first. Kalani and Keanu were tube fed breast milk in hospital until later in our stay where they were transitioned to bottle feeds. And let me tell you, it was no walk in the park!

Despite trying everything it was almost impossible to wake them for feeds. Plus, with Kalani having major jaundice, it was even harder to feed him.

It took us at least 1.5 months to actually feed properly! I thought for sure they had upper lip ties, reflux, colic…something that would explain it. But after many, many doctor visits they all said the same thing, “YOUR BABIES ARE FINE!”

Of course that didn’t sit well with me because I knew something was wrong. It’s just a motherly instinct. You never overlook it!

Though it wasn’t diagnosed my gut feeling was that my babies had colic, so I did get off the shelf medicines appropriate for their age to see if it made a difference. It was touch and go as I found these medicines did and didn’t work.

I spent hundreds of dollars trying different formulas and different types of milk only to find that nothing worked and reverted back to our original formula.

Soooooo, now we come to their sleeping habits… You know those mamas that have a baby who sleeps through from 6 weeks? Yeah, not my sons! We’ve had a heck of a ride when it came to our sleep… Oh let me just tell you!

We had an in home sleep consultant come out to our house and write up a plan that suited our family and lifestyle when they were 4 months corrected age. It worked for probably… hmm… 4 days!

I was so disappointed because I had such high hopes and I was extremely sleep deprived. I still am! So I really hoped we had a solution. I didn’t want to give up because let’s be real… A well rested mama is a great, great, great, great mama! And I wanted to be that mama!

So we tried desperately to get into sleep school at the Ellen Barron Family Centre. And then we finally got accepted when the boys were 6 months old.

Unfortunately, even that didn’t work for us.

The nurses at Ellen Barron called Keanu ‘El Toro the Bull’. He was absolutely horrid. OH BELIEVE ME, I KNOW! Still to this day he is an absolute bugger to put to sleep.

I spent countless hours patting, rocking, shooshing, rocking in the pram, driving around and around and cuddling my babies trying to get them to sleep. COUNTLESS hours! I’m blessed with the amount of hair I still have on my head as a result.

I had also tried…
Darkening their room, introducing soft music, swaddles, sleeping bags, co-sleeping, offering more milk, offering more food, adjusting their sleep times, adjusting their awake times, reading sleep books… Everything you can name, I did!

In the end, I just threw my hands up and said whatever, I’ll just deal with it. So hello, from a proud, tired, sleepless mama of twin boys who are terrible, terrible sleepers. Anyone else? Wanna join my club! There’s coffee! Lot’s of coffee!

So onto the health side of things…
As you know, Kalani and Keanu were born 24+5 weeks gestation. Because of this, we have had continuous check ups at Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital for both boys with the surgeon who performed their bowel surgeries.

They had noticed both boys testicles were too high and if by 12 months they haven’t dropped they would need further surgery.

Thankfully Keanu’s did drop into place, but Kalani isn’t as lucky as his little brother and we will be going back for surgery within the next 90 days.

HOPEFULLY… That will be the end of all the surgeries for my little guys. Because with this new surgery, that will make it number four for Kalani. It’s no biggy though! We’ve had worse! I just hope it works the first time. Hospitals make me uneasy and I don’t like being there any longer than I have to.

Babies get sick. And when your baby is sick everyone is sick, tired and miserable. Because the boys were so premature, they are prone to get everything and anything. Every week they’ve had a cold or the flu! High temps, ear infections. You name it. NO EXAGGERATION.

We had the worst of the worst a few months ago where Kalani came down with Norovirus and Salmonella food poisoning. Both… At the same time! It was such a horrible and exhausting 5 days in hospital. My little man couldn’t catch a break. And the worst part for me about that hospital stay was trying to tear myself into two again between my twins, with one in hospital and one at home.

BUT… With all the bad aside, we’ve also had some great times too.

The boys have developed their own unique personalities. Kalani is a soft, sensitive, curious cuddle bug, who roars and growls like a tiger. HE IS SUCH A MUMMIES BOY.

Keanu is a loud, outgoing dare devil with a twinkle in his eye who demands all the attention in the world. Just ask all the grandmas at Woolworths!

They are slowly but surely reaching their milestones too, with a little help from physiotherapy.

Keanu is now sitting to crawling, trying to pull himself onto furniture, saying dada and mama and can twinkle his fingers to twinkle, twinkle little star. And Kalani can too! (It’s their favourite song).

Kalani is sitting and commando crawling and saying dada. We find Kalani is about 2 weeks behind Keanu but we don’t mind because he’s still our little baby and he will catch up at his own pace.

Both boys love their food. They also LOVE painting, LOVE water play and absolutely LOVE other children and being out and about being social butterflies. But I guess you have to be social if you’re a twin right?

Everywhere we go people stop me 100 times. Twins are fascinating, I get it! But OMG, could you imagine having quadruplets?

– Are they twins?
– Are they identical?
– Are they both boys?
– Were they premature?
– Were they naturally conceived?
– Will you have anymore?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, NO! (Joking)

– You must have your hands full?
– Double trouble!
– Twice the love!
– You are so blessed!

I have heard it all!

I say this however, being a first time mum has really tested me. I suffered severe PND (post natal depression) for the first 6 months of motherhood, that I have now managed to overcome.

I would cry at the drop of a hat and it was very tough on me to try and be the best mother to two little humans who had feeding, sleeping and medical issues. As well as dealing with whatever life wanted to throw at me too. Thankfully I had my mum, my sisters and my best friend to keep me grounded through my most darkest days, and give a helping hand.

I now really enjoy being a first time mama to twins. But sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to have a singleton for a day or two! I’ve adjusted quite well and I am more confident within myself and my babies, even if they don’t sleep and have no routine whatsoever. We just go with the flow.

People now ask me how I do it. I don’t know if I can answer that. I just do.

And because of this, it now just comes naturally.

Happy first birthday, Kalani and Keanu.

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Thanks Sam. We wish the boys a wonderful first birthday. And well done Mama, you made it!

*If you or someone you know is suffering from Post Natal Depression you can get information and help at www.panda.org.au

Photo Friday: A portrait of Jesse

Kaine BartonLeave a comment

I absolutely love photography. I love looking at photography. I love reading about photography. And I love participating in photography. And despite the fact that I have never had any formal training in photography, I think some of the photographs I manage to take, well… are pretty darn good.

So when it comes to what I like to photograph, well, I like to photograph pretty much anything. Nature… Architecture… Portraits… People… I know that professional photographers tend to specialise in one area of photography only, but I’m not a professional. And I do this for fun. So why not!

However, that said I do have one favourite subject that I just absolutely love to photograph. You guessed it… Jesse!

Jesse is by far my favourite subject on earth to photograph. He is just so damn cute… he is forever changing as he grows up day by day… and I just love him to bits.

So when we were home last Sunday and I noticed these beautiful streams of lights coming through the blinds, I went and grabbed our camera just in case a good opportunity came up to take a few photos of Jesse as he played with his blocks.

As I lay on the floor, he spotted that I had the camera and walked straight for me, and stopped right in the streams of light that were filtering through the window. The camera was all set and ready to go, so I started firing of photos as he was standing next to me, inquisitively checking out what I was doing.

And while I was ducking and dodging him trying to grab hold of the camera, I ended up getting this photo of him.

It was completely by accident, and it was a completely spontaneous moment. But it ended with me taking what is now my favourite photo of Jesse that we have got!

It’s also made me realise how much I love portraiture. Maybe this is an area of photography that I need to dive into in a little more detail?

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