Murphy’s Christmas Letter
Well with the wedding and Honeymoon behind us we arrived home with a few weeks of work before some of our family arrived in Germany to help us celebrate our first married Christmas. As usual work being frantic Paul did not make the airport (we are sooo not good at airport shuttling missing people, being late, going to wrong terminals……) but Paul’s newly acquired “other or better half” was engaged to welcome her new in-laws to Germany, Sandra, John, A. Ann and U. Ray and made it in plenty of time. They arrived in Germany just before Christmas to some very cold weather although the snow from November had now disappeared. We spent a lovely time mostly indoors catching up and preparing for our Christmas Day. We were also the “expat orphans haven” with Jenn, Dave, Casey, and Marianne joining us to help celebrate and add to the Christmas cheer. We had a beautiful traditional lunch and of course managed to over eat all our courses. The tree was full of gifts, the Christmas Carols playing and much love and laughter shared.
Between Christmas and New Year, Paul and the family went to Austria to Klagenford to visit the cemetery where John and A.Ann’s Dad had been buried during the WWII. Despite the weather being horrendous and a longer drive than anticipated the trip was enjoyed by all.
New Years was celebrated at Marianne’s with a beautiful New Years Dinner which was followed by dancing including the jig, rock and rolling ( poor John was engaged to teach us “Youngans” how to do it with some hilarious efforts) and much laughter. Midnight saw choruses of Auld Lang and the letting off of far too many fireworks by amateurs who thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of being allowed to do this! The New Year saw our guests leave to return to Australia all too soon but Paul and I had clocked up some fond memories of our first married Christmas with Friends and family.
After this lovely Christmas and family/friends party to see the New Year in, Paul and I entered the New Year still as newly weds and basking in the glow of honeymooners love!
This became sealed with the successful blessing of me becoming pregnant in February which both of us were extremely excited about.
March saw another whirlwind trip home to Australia to share the very special wedding days of our friends Narelle and Mark in Sydney and Karren and Josh on HamiltonIsland. What a treat these events were with fantastic days, weddings and catching up with many friends which we thoroughly enjoyed. So again we left Sydney with bellies full of seafood and a pile of fantastic memories of times shared with family and friends…..
We then returned to Germany to knuckle down to work again and growing a baby…..
Pregnancy was not all I imagined it to be and I soon got over the novelty and was constantly amazed at the amount of kilos which piled onto my frame! Not sure that the home cooking of cookies, cakes and giving up smoking in January had a direct cause but am pretty sure it did not help matters.
Paul was very patient with all the phases of pregnancy and the hormonal and lifestyle changes that came with the pregnancy. I often referred to this child as an only child if I did not get me a huge dose of forget everything hormones. I was fortunate enough to have a large number of girlfriends all pregnant at the same time as me, so we could compare horror stories. I cannot believe women have been doing this for hundreds of years and going back 2-10 times with little or no fuss! I am sooooo not one of them! Noise and sharing of the experience I certainly made! Ha!
We again had visitors passing through our home this year and enjoyed catching up with them and sharing our village, home and dinners with them. We also both made contact with old school friends which we have both really enjoyed and will continue to do so with a trip to Scotland early next year to meet up with my school friend Sam and her family. Should be loads of fun!
We had made a conscious decision to increase our travel in Europe to make the most of the doorstep Germany provides to the continent and we managed trips to Greece, Prague, Santorini, London, Switzerland and Hannover all of which we enjoyed. I won’t recap the details of each as these were sent in the articles throughout the year.
No doubt the greatest event we had this year occurred on 23rd November…….
On 22nd November after the Obstetrician had been monitoring me every 3 days she finally sent me to the hospital for induction. After a challenging 14hr labour and caesarean section our almost 4kg little man entered our world completely surrounded with our love, anticipation and sheer relief…..we then spent the next 5-6days in our hospital room where we were busy adjusting to new physical challenges in recovering from surgery and adapting to motherhood’s physical and mental challenges which also arise every day…..it really is sink or swim! After the caesarean I remember thinking – I have been up for 24hrs, 14hrs of these I laboured (equivalent of running a torturous marathon), been cut open and a large gorgeous baby removed and now instead of curling up in a corner with good drugs on board and falling into a deep sleep for 8-10hrs, I have to wake up every three hours, feed the baby and tend to his needs as first priority…..your kidding what a rude shock! But amazingly mothers and fathers do it and just get on with it as if it is the most natural behaviour in the world……
Friends who visited that night comment later at how I was almost slurring in speech that night when they came up and everyone was there……this was after still having no sleep and simply a sign of the exhaustion mixed with adrenalin new mums go through I guess. Incredible!
Three weeks on……
We brought Keian home in the snow, not many of my friends in Australia who have had their babies can say they carried their new first born home in the snow! Try working out how to dress a new born to ensure they are warm or cool enough, then add into the scenario the SNOW! Arrggghhhh!
I can now move freely about, pick things up (under 5kgs), eat and do normal things that were a challenge in the early days. Keian is a hearty eater and feeds well every four hours for 20 minutes and is gaining weight very well. He has as at this morning hit 4200g so midwife and parents are happy.
He decided once Gran went home that he would not need to have a sleep in the mornings or the evenings but wanted to be held during these four hour periods which required some patience from Mum and Dad! Now with some tips from the midwife and resigning to the dummy occassionally during the going off to sleep times we are great with lots of sleeping, feeding, cuddles and peace.
Paul is a delightful and supportive father doing more than his fair share, I would truly be lost without him! Keian responds well with Paul and recognizes him and his voice from across the room. He is a very alert baby we are told and holding his head up for long periods of time does not seem to be a bother to our bouncing bundle! He continues to win our hearts day in and out, along with our friends here who visit him regularly…..he is well know to the kids in the street as baby boy Keian and that is what they call him!
We are now in the runup to Christmas and I am very grateful that I finished most of my Christmas shopping in August with only a little over a week to go and Keian and I still only doing short outings when we can! Our guest for this years Christmas season are only a week away from joining us so again with anticipation we look forward to Christmas although we feel like Santa gave us everything we could wish for on the 23rd November…..
Our congratulations to Mel and Chris with the addition of Lachlan, to Kylie and Kari with the addition of Millie, to all the girls in our prenatal class who have had and are about to have their little bundles of love delivered…..we look forward to meeting all of your little babies in the not too distant future! Congratulations also to our good friends Paul and Anita Woods who became grandparents to a grand-daughter and grandson in a matter of 2-3mths! May you continue to wet the babies’ heads and enjoy life as a grandparent which they say is far more pleasurable than being the parents!!!!! My dad says if he had known how good Grand-parenting was he would have skipped the parenting and gone straight to it! J
Thank you for all of your correspondence throughout the year we love it! and to those that amused me on Sametime and email for the many insomniac hours I had to fill at the end of the pregnancy….
The support and unbelieveable sharing we felt for our little boys arrival from you all…the cards, flowers, gifts, texts, emails, phonecalls and love/support we received from all of you was overwhelming and Paul and I often sit together and marvel at just how supported we are……
Life has been so good to us for our first year of marriage and we look forward to the next year with just as much anticipation now as a family of 3! How things change in a year!!!!!!!!
We are hoping to come home for all of March to introduce our Baby Boy Keian to you all and to meet the new family, Aunts, Uncles, cousins friends…..We will keep you posted on confirmation and itineries.
As I look out the window right now and the snow is gently falling in large flakes, Keian is a sleep beside me and Paul is clearing the front steps of snow……I look across the white Countryside up to the castle and think about my blessings…..how lucky are we!
From the three of us we wish all of you and your families and friends a happy, healthy and safe Christmas full of laughter and love……
All our love and friendship
Paul, Corrine and Keian
xoxoxox