2009: the big year that brought us a big baby

2009 has been a big year for Bryan and I, most obviously with the arrival of Liam.


Liam is now a little over 4 months old, and growing like a weed. He's doubled his birth weight now, at 7.2 kg and 67 cm in length. This puts him in the 75th percentile for height and 90th percentile for height among baby boys his age. I suppose this is to be expected though, given his Daddy's stature. He's still got his gorgeous big blue eyes, with lashes that any girl would kill for.

For Christmas and New Year this year we came to my parent's house on the south coast of NSW. A very relaxing place to be, which is just what we need. Not much to do other than read books on the balcony and walk on the beach. Here's a photo of Liam in his beach gear.


2010 will see me return to work, part time at least. And no doubt it will be a big year of changes in Liam. I can't wait.

Welcome baby Liam

Better late than never. Bryan and I welcomed Liam Robert Coad into the world at 6.02 a.m. on Tuesday August 18th 2009. The labour had to be induced since he was 13 days late, showing no signs of wanting to leave my comfy womb. Other than that though, the whole birth process went well (as well as you can expect with all that pain and stuff) with no complications.

Liam weighed 3.68 kg (8 lb 2 oz), measuring 52 cm in length, and (most importantly) a head circumference of 34 cm. This is really quite moderate when you consider that I met a girl in the hospital who gave birth naturally to a 4.5 kg baby - poor thing!


We chose the name Liam because it was pretty much the only name that Bryan and I both agreed on. And we chose Robert because its a strong name on both sides of the family. Robert is my father's and great grandfather's name, the name of both Bryan's grandfathers, as well as being Bryan's middle name. Bryan likes the idea of sharing a middle name with his son.

An assortment of little things

You might be wondering how the caffeine cut-down is going. Thanks for asking - I think its going quite well. I haven't had resort to caffeine patches, and nobody has commented (that I know of) that I've been more bitchy than usual. I won't deny that its been a bit challenging, but its mostly in terms of overcoming habits, rather than suffering from withdrawals. I've been having the minimum caffeine required to keep headaches at bay, which I usually consume by 11 am. But in the afternoon I find myself jonesing for bubbles. Usually I would reach for diet coke at this point, but I have found that diet lemonade is enough to keep my mind off it. So, I'll continue like this for another week or two until I've fully adjusted, and then cut the caffeine by half again.

I've been married for almost a year now, and after careful consideration, Bryan and myself have decided that we each still think the other is ace. We'll be going back to sunny Queensland next weekend to celebrate our anniversary.

I recently became an Aunt for the 3rd time, to little Caelin. She is extremely cute, and a surprisingly feminine addition to the Coad bloodline. I say that because many of us couldn't fathom the idea of having a girl born into the Coad family. After some questioning of Bryan about his family tree recently, we discovered that in addition to his 2 male siblings, he has a disproportionately high (something like 90%) number of male cousins on both sides of his moderately sized family and one of his few female cousins is adopted. So he has always felt destined to spawn a predomonantly male family one day. But this is not the case with me - I was brought up in quite a girly household where even the dog had to be female. We couldn't fathom the idea of boy in the family (although things have changed now that my sister has brought little Benjamin into the world). One day one of will have some adjusting to do I guess!

Speaking of the dog, Molly is going back into surgery tomorrow to have her knee tuned up. I can't remember if I blogged about it at the time, but she blew out her knee joint while chasing rabbits back in July. Knee injuries are apparently very common in dogs of her speed and stature (i.e. Keg on legs, Ferrari engine with a Volkswagen chassis). She had surgery to repair the cruciate ligaments, but after 8 weeks with quite a lot of pain and minimal recovery, she needs a bit more repair. She probably still has some damaged meniscus preventing a full range of motion (and hurting like hell). Anyway, hopefully she will be on the road to recovery after tomorrow's surgery. She's such a stoich little trooper, and a very special pup to me.

I can laugh about it now

Here's a funny story.

It was my parent's birthdays this week. They're both at a stage in their lives where they really don't need or want anything, so I decided to get them a gift voucher for their favourite fancy restaurant, Bannisters. I called Bannisters and ordered the gift voucher (of not inconsiderable value), and organised for it to be mailed out to my parents in plenty of time for their birthdays.

Last weekend (still a couple of days before their birthdays), I casually asked if they had received anything interesting in the mail. They said no. I got a little icky sensation in the pit of my stomach, realising that something could have gone horribly wrong. My credit card had been charged, but had I given the correct address for delivery? What if it had accidentally been delivered to someone else? (I mean, I'm always receiving mail for people who live at the same unit and street number, one street over from us) What if it was lost in the mail? What if some underpaid mail sorter had intercepted the envelope and taken the gift voucher? But since the birthdays hadn't happened yet, I decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and wait a few more days.

This morning, three weeks after I had organised this gift voucher, I called the parental unit again, spoke to Dad, and asked if they had received anything birthday related in the mail. And again, he said no. OH NO!!!!

Immediately I called Bannisters and told them that something had gone awry, the gift voucher was MIA, and what were they going to do about it? The lady who I spoke with was very polite, but really couldn't grasp the concept that the voucher might not have reached its intended recipient. She kept telling me that it had been charged to my credit card on April 10th ("Yes, I know that") and it was mailed out the same day ("Mmmhhhhmmm, yes I believe you"). We confirmed the mailing address had been correct and the names on the voucher were correct. Then she helpfully went and checked the desk where they kept the out-tray to make sure it hadn't fallen behind. It hadn't. She really didn't have any helpful suggestions for me. I had to help her with that. I suggested that she reassure me that the voucher hadn't yet been cashed in. It hadn't. Then I asked if it was possible to cancel the voucher and make a new one. She thought about it for a while and decided it might be possible. Good, we were getting somewhere. Anyhoo we sorted it out and arranged for a new gift voucher for my parents to come and pick up.

So I rang my parents and this time spoke to my mother. I told her the story, that she should have received something for her birthday from Bannisters and that it had clearly got lost in the mail. At this point she screamed. Yes, she screamed. I thought that she might be being over-dramatic about how nice the birthday present would have been if they had got it and how great it was that I was so thoughtful. But I was wrong.

After a brief silence, my Mum started telling me, semi-hysterically, that there had been some mail from Bannisters last weekend and she had thought it was junk mail. So she threw it away.

Sometimes I can't believe I'm related to these people.