Bats and school fetes.

Well time is just flying by and there are so many things I want to write.

Yesterday uni noticed a bat hanging upside down sleeping in our mango tree.

We (especially Kt) spent plenty of time checking him out. Apparently a bat will turn itself right way up, open out its wings and do a poo, then he turns himself upside down again, wraps himself up with his wings and goes back to sleep.

I missed this amazing sight ... but Kt saw it happen several times. I meant to take a photo of it but am having hassles with my camera battery at the moment. I have to buy a new one.

He came back again and was in the tree early this morning before school, much to our surprise! When I went to hang washing out later in the day I could no longer see him.

I hope Kt is not too dissapointed that he is gone when she returns home this afternoon.

This weekend just gone I took Kt and baby moo to her school's 50th anniversary fete.

I was hoping not to have to do it alone, but everyone I could ask to come along was working. Any thoughts of missing out on it were banished when I realized how keen Kt was to go along.

I decided I would go for as long as we could and return home when moo needed a feed. I took the pram so I would not have to carry him for any length of time.

He woke for a feed at 8am which meant that I expected he would need to be fed again at 1pm. The fete started at 10am and was to go until 3pm.

After his feed, moo settled into his bouncer quietly while I went around in a rush assembling everything I thought I would need.

This included 4 nappies, a full change of clothes, one blanket for in the pram and one blanket to cover the pram, wipes, nappy sacks, a bag for kt to use to carry her loot and a handbag for me (with additional nappies, wipes, tissues, wallet,keys etc).

Everything had to fit either in my handbag or in the storage compartment under the pram ... and of course we had to leave space for whatever treasures kt wanted to purchase from the fete.

We headed off and arrived a bit after 10am. First stop was the year one craft stall, so that kt could see her teacher and buy a pet rock. She also got a dreamcatcher and then did a collage.

Next we went and got her face painted and then my beautiful butterfly got a purple helium balloon.

After that we decided to check out the rides and pick up her armband which we had prepurchased for $25 and would allow her to go on all the rides as many times as she wanted to.

I had debated whether to buy one of these because I worried she would not go on the rides on her own. Luckily uni convinced me to get one. Each ride individually costs $4 and over the course of the day she went on her favourite ride ... the big slide 15 times!!!!!

There was also a jumping castle, a ball crawl, and a spinning chair ride.

Once she was away on the rides it was virtually impossible for me to get her attention, and she was having such a great time I didn't really mind.

R slept for the first hour and then once we got to the noisy rides he woke up and would not go back to sleep.

While I waited for Kt to tire of any rides and return to me (LOL) I ended up having to carry moo and push the pram at the same time. It was too early for a feed and I was sure he really just needed to sleep but I could not calm him.

I put him back in the pram and picked him up and walked him around numerous times and started to stress a bit about him being in the sun and also not settling.

I ended up looking for shady and quiet spots and tried to keep an eye on Kt at the same time.

Eventually I decided to cover the pram with the big blanket and walk it around. This worked a treat and I was able to observe kt in peace and enjoy her enthusiasm and excitement.

As it got closer to 1pm I suggested to kt that we have some lunch and went in search of a quiet unpopulated place to eat it. We stopped at the year 1 undercover eating area which was deserted and I had got half way through my pie when moo woke up and yelled for his lunch too.

I wolfed down my pie, and gave him my first ever outdoor breastfeed. It went remarkably well, was fairly quick, and I used the pram in front of me as a bit of a privacy shield as well as the pram covering blanket which I rested under his head and had it sticking up behind and also above his head to provide additional privacy screening. I had his head in the crook of my right arm, feeding from my right breast, while I held it near his mouth with my left hand.

I had my right leg raised up onto the pram('s storage compartment) in front of me to give his body a bit of a lift (as I usually have him lying on a pillow to raise him to the level of my breast).

I had tried lying him on top of my handbag but he didn't find that very comfortable.

I was going to give him a nappy change in the pram too, but he fell asleep immediately after the feed and I didn't really want to disturb him.

He then slept peacefully for the rest of the fete and we stayed right until the end.

While I fed him I had kt stocked up with lunch, a drink and snacks to keep her busy and close by. She ended up playing with her helium balloon and letting it go and of course we were unable to retrieve it.

There were many tears and the butterfly on her face started to melt. Meanwhile I managed to keep feeding moo, and pretty much held it together despite the high level of demand on my attention from each.

Kt ended up heading over to get another purple balloon herself, with me trying desperately to call her back and try and catch up!

After that we did a lucky dip, had a few goes on the laughing clown, went on many more rides, had some 50th anniversary cake ... ended up serving a wave of other people some anniversary cake while waiting for kt to finish her icy pole and chocolate milk. We were sitting near the cake cutting area and the lady who was doing the job dissapeared when we were not looking and rather than leaving the knife in the hands of primary school kids I took over for the last quarter of the cake until it was all gone!!!!

We just made it back to the stall which had a bracelet that kt particularly wanted, as they were getting ready to take their gear back to the car. I had hesitated on buying it for her because the price on the rack was $15 and I thought that was a bit much, but she kept returning to the stall and asking me whether I had decided if she could buy it and eventually I said that she could.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually only $5!!! and also very relieved that we had caught them before they left.

Kt offloaded most of a very full bag of piggy bank money and one of my $20 notes also completely dissappeared on the day too. Most of the money will go to the school so it was a worthy cause.