I have a Doctor...

After living in NZ for 7.5 months, I visited the Dr for the first time today. I'm not sick, I just thought it would be good to find a good Dr, so that when I do get sick (or one of the kids do), I don't have to stress about finding one. I am quite happy with the Dr I saw today and will go back to her in the future. She helped me get the ball rolling with pregnancy stuff - blood test and dating scan - and gave me some names of good midwives.

Autumn is here

The colours have started - not all trees are losing leaves just yet, but a reasonable number are.

Soft cheese and pregancy - danger or not?

Since moving to NZ we have been taking advantage of the good variety of quality brie and blue cheeses they make here. Hence now that I am pregnant, I'm having withdrawal symptoms from it and want to eat some (especially when Peter is eating it right in front of me). So this has led to some more research into the subject of what is the problem with eating soft cheese while pregnant.

Here are some summary points that we have discovered/observed from our research:

• In Australia, the reason they tell you not to eat soft cheese while pregnant is because it may contain lysteria (mostly a problem with cheese made with unpasteurised milk)
  
• lysteria is a bacteria which is present in a number of foods we eat everyday, but consuming it doesn't have any adverse effects on the average human adult
• lysteria may cause miscarriage in pregnant women, although how high of a risk it poses is not really known
• In countries where the consumption of soft cheese is an everyday part of the culture, they don't seem to worry about pregnant women eating it (including France where a number of their soft cheeses are made with unpasteurised milk).
• In countries where the consumption of soft cheese is not an everyday part of the culture, then they seem to be overly cautious and advise pregnant women not to eat it (pasteurised or not).

So this means for me both Australia and NZ advise not to eat it. Whereas my pregnant sister in Denmark has not been advised to change her cheese eating habits at all.

The Hokey Pokey...

Simple song, simple dance, but not so simple history/background. Since being here I have noticed in a couple of different places (creche at the gym and Joanna's swimming lessons) that New Zealanders sing the 'Hokey Tokey' instead of the 'Hokey Pokey' like we are used to in Australia. Anyway I had a look on the internet to find out why and found that the whole history behind the origins and meaning of the song is rather complicated and surrounded by controversy. The song actually has 3 titles depending on where in the world you live...either 'Hokey Cokey', 'Hokey Pokey', or 'Hokey Tokey'. Anyway if you want more details about it, go look here. As far as NZ is concerned, the name may have been changed to avoid confusion with the NZ ice-cream flavour 'Hokey Pokey' (plain vanilla ice cream with small lumps of sponge toffee).

Morning at the park...

School holiays = no kindy, no playgroup, no bible study. This means I have a lot of time to occupy kids for. So after going slightly batty yesterday having not planned anything (well I kinda turned into grumyzilla mum), I came up with the idea of taking the kids to the park this morning (the thing is activities have to not take much energy on my part as I'm not that energetic at the moment). I took them to the one next to the Claudelands showgrounds. It was great!...Joanna stayed on a swing for about 30min (which meant I just had to stand and give a little push every so often), and Ben pretty much entertained himself the whole time (since starting kindy, I've noticed he is much more confident at talking to other kids - especially ones he doesn't know). The most painful part was leaving, as neither of them wanted to!

Visit to the Mount

In NZ, everyone knows what you mean when you talk about the Mount. Mt Maunganui of course. It's a little mountain near Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty region, with a very nice beach. I decided to take the kids there while Mel blobbed at home today. The drive there is reaonably straight (Mom, I think you would survive it!), although Joanna was a little whingy. We got there in time for morning tea and enjoyed sitting on the grass, having an Easter egg, among other things.
After that, we got changed into our swimmers and headed down onto the sand to play. Ben had lots of fun playing in the sand, and then "skiing" in the water. I had a quick swim as well - it was warm enough in the sun, even though the temperature only got to 21C today.
Fish and chips for lunch was followed by the drive home... I would have liked to spend the rest of the day there though - it's a really nice place.

How to tell when Ben enjoys something...

He starts incorporating it into his play. I'm sure it's not just him, but it's fun to take note of what he really enjoys about things. Last Easter we went to Fraser Island, and for months afterward he would "play" about it (going on a barge, going to Lake Wabby etc). After our overnight bushwalk a couple of months back, he didn't really "play" about it as much as I thought he might have. So I thought maybe he hadn't enjoyed it quite as much as I'd hoped he would have. Just recently though, he's been playing about going into the forest and sleeping in a hut. So I guess the memory is still there, and he did enjoy it after all. Or he was traumatized by the experience. I choose to believe the first option. :)

West to Marokopa

With Mel feeling rather tired at the moment, we decided to not go away for the Easter weekend. Instead, I took the kids out for the day on Friday. The destination was Marokopa, a really tiny town on the west coast about 1.5 hours southwest of Hamilton (maybe a bit more actually... hard to tell). Anyway, we went with Glen (friend from work). Some highlights:

• Mangapohue Natural Bridge is kind of cool.
• Marokopa Falls is quite a nice waterfall.
• Marokopa village is a pretty ordinary place.
• It's quite a long way back winding through the hills towards Kawhia.
  

Catering for a pregnant woman...

Mel: I feel like a toasted cheese sandwich.
Me: OK.
Mel: But I don't feel like the really really mild Edam cheese - the flavour's too strong.
Me: OK. What sort of cheese do you want then?
Mel: Ummm... some really strong blue cheese would be good.
Me: mmm... right.

Strange pregnancy dreams...

As a lot of you would know pregnancy hormones cause you to have some very strange and vivid dreams. Well last night I dreamed that Peter was flying a small plane (a 2 seater job with me in the passenger seat) to the airport to catch an international flight. Except he had forgotten to book a space to park the small plane, so we went to the airport caravan park to see if they had a space where we could park it! Then on our international flight we were travelling in 1st class which was at the back of the plane, not the front like normal.