If you had to be either aggravated and overwhelmed, or useless and redundant, which would you choose? I love my son. But I don’t like him at all. Timmy is too much for me. Too much noise. Too much mess. Too much noise. Too much demanding. Too much noise. I’m...
My first coherent conversation with Timmy…and it’s about a dirty nappy. Not all things can be poetic literature, I suppose. I was putting a new nappy on Daniel when I hear behind me, “Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!” I turned to see Timmy looking at me expectantly. “What’s yuck?” I...
Last weekend didn’t go as I’d hoped. Husband’s father visited from Australia, and I’d hoped to get photos of him with the boys. I always have their scrapbook spreads in mind during such things. Otherwise I’d probably never take the camera out, because why distract yourself taking pictures of...
We’re moving house. Again. I haven’t lived longer than two years at any one address since I moved out of my parents’ place. And I’ve lived at eleven addresses since then. In mocking poetry, we’re moving our stuff out of this house two years to the day since it...
There is domestic violence in this household. On a daily basis I am slapped, kicked, pinched, and sometimes have to curl up into a foetal position where I rock quietly, crying, and whisper to myself, “I’m in my bubble…I’m in my bubble…” But the fact this violence is perpetrated...
I’ve been gradually acclimatising to having two children, and the way that changes how I need to do things. I think it’s rather like spinning plates. There’s a fine choreography in tending to multiple children within satisfactory time-frames. In some ways it’s even a mercy for my fatigue levels...
Two beasts have taken over Timmy. One beast is of my own making. The other is not. Beast One: Sugar. (By the way, the image used here isn’t of Timmy. I used a generic stock-image-baby on purpose, in the hopes that with no visual evidence to convict me, I’d...
“…acute hearing loss…” “…likely permanent…” “…quite significant…” Acute hearing loss…acute hearing loss…acute hearing loss… It didn’t matter what else the audiologist said. It was those three words that got stuck in my head, bouncing around inside my skull, distracting me from all else. It’s a stupid term for Daniel’s...
I really hope I never utter, “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” to either of my boys. It sounds disparaging. But nevertheless, in these new and novel days of having two children, I can’t help noting the differences between them. Similarities are few, in regards to their...
You’d think I’d know better, having been through newborn theatrics before, but nevertheless I really did anticipate updating this blog as soon as I was home from the hospital with Bump Two (renamed Daniel), and back with healthy hefty wi-fi access. Hope springs eternal, and all that. But it...
This time, the extended silence between now and my last blog post wasn’t because of laziness or busyness. I did it because I was thinking of you all. Really. Nobody likes a complainer. And given that a lot of my literary ‘wit’ is naturally acerbic, I thought that to...
Clearly, I had no idea during my first pregnancy just how lucky I was. Barring the nausea that stopped at the end of the first trimester, it was barely noticeable. Reminders I was pregnant typically came only when I bent over to lace my shoes and had to hold...
I have busted a great medical myth. I’ve concluded that obstetricians do not, in fact, exist. They’re an idea, a philosophical construct of the medical community designed to keep expectant mothers reassured that their case is being handled by a 20ft-tall archdoctor with golden fingers. The reality is that...
Wow. The last three weeks have been…well, horrible. Mostly because the only resident of our home who has escaped vicious sickness is the budgie. Those of us without feathers of invincibility have at various times been subject to the strong grip of colds, aches, throats of sandpaper, headaches, vomit,...
Yesterday, Mother’s Day, was a good day for me. Even though I had to go to work in the afternoon. At home I enjoyed Mother’s Day perks, and at work I enjoyed my last shift where I can actually feel competent at my job — more on that in...
To be honest, first birthdays are kind of a nothing thing, aren’t they? The child won’t remember it, and it’s potluck whether they will even enjoy themselves at the time. I’ve heard the theory that a child’s first birthday (especially if it’s a first child) is more a celebration...
Timmy is confident of his own superiority. Our dining table is round, but he is still able to make his seat clearly the ‘head’, simply by his demeanour and force of will. His favoured dining pose is to have his arms locked outward, palms flat on the table top...
My brain has been drowned since making the last blog post. But on the up-side, I made good progress and am now in a much more comfortable place! When I’d been chatting with midwife after midwife in my search to find one that would take my case, I was...
I went to my last midwife appointment with a considerable measure of nervousness. Following my hours of reading articles about birth trauma, arguments of natural vs. caesarean births, and the process and recovery of caesareans, I was increasingly sure a c-section was the probable aim for me this time....
The good news is my nausea stage of pregnancy seems to be over. I still get knocked in the back of the head with fatigue that renders me near-useless, but I’m just so glad to have the pukey feeling finally gone, the relief is like slipping into a warm...
Earlier this year my husband was overseas for a week. Despite common assumption, I’d been looking forward to it. I appreciate him being around so much as he works from home — it comes with many conveniences like being able to leave Timmy at home sleeping while I rush out...
This post has been a long time coming. But I have a very good reason, I believe. I wasn’t leaving this blog dead in the water out of laziness. It was instead out of a complete inability to do anything but feel miserable and sorry for myself, wishing I...
It seems that in the Kingdom of Blog, time moves differently. I had the best of intentions to post an entry about Timmy’s sleep positioner manipulation skills, but it’s a non-issue now, so I write this half-heartedly, as it all seems rather redundant. Still, at least I can include...
