It’s been hectic around here the last few weeks. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still time – always time – to sit on the couch and google the Beckhams, but it’s been all systems go otherwise.

For my girl this means solid food (banana and avocado are currently favourites, but what’s not to like?), sitting, planking (she’s better at this than either of her folks), six month immunisations, and a new regime where we’re desperately trying to introduce the bottle and stop comfort feeding overnight. It’s hit and miss but I am slowly learning that this is just babies.  I have no wish to jinx myself but for the last few days her sleep has been slightly more manageable; it could just be the afore mentioned immunisations. If this is the case those anti-vaccers are even more crazy than I previously thought.

For me, for Tim, there’s an upcoming wedding, an international move, a house and life to disassemble and rebuild. The wedding planning was surprisingly easy; registry office followed by a big party in the State Library. It fell into place like a neat jigsaw – time constraints eliminating any predisposition to fuss or overthink the event. Despite my general lack of interest in marriage, I confess I’m excited. I don’t want to say ‘meant to be’, because that’s nonsense, but it almost feels like it.

The move to Switzerland was signed off a few days ago. There was surprising hesitancy and caution from Tim – it’s been pretty much a done deal for a while but the actual signature was hard in the end. But! It’s inked, there was champagne, and everyone knows that means it’s for reals. It doesn’t feel like it yet, of course. I’ve spent any time that I’ve not been looking at the Beckhams googling Switzerland, maps of Europe, researching food blogs and looking at real estate. It’s exciting but abstract, like I’m spying on someone else’s life. I’ve also started The Great Cull. We’ve been in the house for three and a half years now and while I think we’re not particularly hoardy (Tim still bemoans the panama I discarded when he hadn’t worn it for a year) (and because it was horrid) we’ve still got a lot of stuff. I’m not sure how it happened, really. On advice from Tim’s colleagues over there already we’ll take most of our things, but there’s still….more things. It gives me a slight headache.

In terms of these changes, I feel like I’m in a bit of a vacuum. The monotony (happy, delightful, giggly and skwarky monotony) of having a child has put a counterbalance to the big changes going on around us. I’m nervous about not making friends, being isolated due to an inability to speak the language (although that apparently won’t be so hard for the girl), of the actual flight over there, of being super lonesome when Tim is off travelling for work. This is managed – not eradicated, but eased – by thinking of next little meals for her, activities we can do, gentle scheduling throughout the day. It is perhaps the first time the monotony has been a panacea. I wonder if we’d have been able to do the move any other time – my expectations would have been so different, the pressure perhaps too much.

I’m most excited about seeing the world as a family. Parenthood has already been a massive adventure, and even after an hour of crying (not always hers) at 3am, Tim has frequently commented on how much love she’s brought into our lives. I feel so fortunate that we have this, and can take our little family to places we’d previously only fantasised about going to. I know it will change us and shape us, together, and to me that’s the real embodiment of the marriage we’re about to have. (That, and all the baby meals in Switzerland based around warm cheese. Hurrah!)