I was going to look for something festive and witty to finish out 2008.
I haven’t had time.
So, I’m going to get really creative and wish everybody who reads this a:
(I know I outdid myself, hehe)
See you in 2009.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I realised that I haven’t posted any photos of my Grub for a good while. She is getting so big. Sitting on her own now for several minutes at a time. She can roll clear across the room. In fact, I’m thinking she may not crawl for a while because she can get herself around so easily by rolling.
This is my fourth child, I should be used to this overwhelming love by now and I hate to gush, but the whole family is just in awe of how she seems to grow more beautiful every day.
Rhubarb will often say to me “I don’t know how we ever managed without her!”
And it’s true, as I sit here typing this with her asleep in my arms……
I don’t know how we ever managed without her.
So, it turns out I really do need to take these multi-vitamins that my midwife sent to me via my sister. She had been hearing from my very pregnant sister (who, incidentally has requested that she be known on this blog as Patchouli! – she was quite specific about he exclamation mark) about my falling ill about fifty-two-hundred-thousand-bajillion times since Grub was born. So, my midwife gave Patchouli! some capsules for me to take, which I did, until I felt better and then, of course, I stopped.
Now here we are a week after I stopped taking them and I have ginormous bags under my eyes and can barely drag myself between the couch and bed. I am never good at taking any medication, or supplement. Regular routines like that seem to mess with my (rather erratic) natural rhythms and cause me to feel restricted and confined and “I just need to get away from this” and so they never last very long.
My inability to cope with routines extends into many aspects of our life. For example, on Tuesday we were having guests for afternoon tea. They were to arrive at 2pm. At 11:45am, I walked into our then lounge room and announced to my husband and children that we must, immediately switch the furniture between the lounge and the dining room/office. This had been discussed previously but no firm plans had been made until that moment.
Fortunately, my family have long since become accustomed to my scary manic fits of “we must race around urgently fixing everything, now, now, now!”. I regularly switch furniture around and Beefcake, who is equally up for change but prefers to take things at a more measured pace, has learned to comply with my whims and be swift about it. It’s better that way.
You can imagine what it’s like when I am pregnant and nesting. Let’s just say that if you’re afraid of heavy lifting and possibly minor home renovation activities such as plastering, painting and re-flooring (perhaps some light plumbing) it is best to steer clear of me.
So, we did manage to achieve the room switching, which was some feat indeed. Especially if you consider that the dining room/office had become a major dumping ground for all sorts of crap, which required redistributing in an even layer throughout the house. The only slight problem was that our friends arrived a few minutes early and I missed out on blow-drying my hair and applying any make-up. Also, my friend has now been able to confirm to herself that I am insane (although I am sure she would say that she has always known) and I am not sure if providing her with this evidence is a positive move. So, yeah, I’m not always good with routine, I like change. I often feel, I would like to move house, preferably from one side of the world to the other. However, often I want to find a nice comfy home and never ever move again. So maybe I am just moody.
Anyway, the consequence of my not coping with self-medication very well, is that Beefcake must baby me. He must fetch my capsules and put me to bed for naps and make me cups of tea because I have run myself into the ground and am no longer functional.
How have I managed to get myself into a position of being so completely and utterly devoid of energy reserves, yet again?
It just seems to be a constant cycle of just bringing my head above water and having enough energy to get through and cater to everyone’s needs before I am sucked back under again and unable to keep afloat. Do I do it to myself on purpose I wonder, by trying to be crazily perfect and do EVERYTHING when I can manage? I worry that the kids will think that I am just always tired and lazy and drowning and that will be their pervasive impression of me throughout their childhood. I think that is partly because they have a stepmother who doesn’t seem to be drowning. Who doesn’t have an extra four tons residing on her thighs and is all go, go, go. Do they see me as the crap failure? (Which I am but am probably less paranoid and more accepting about most of the time.)
I don’t know. This post makes me sound completely manic but on reflection, I actually think that it is Christmas next week and I have had a tiring year and am just busy getting things organised and if I get a chance for a nap I should just take it and not over analyse.
Okay, thanks for that. Off to bed.
Do you know what’s annoying?
When you wake up in the morning and discover that your website, which you’ve only been using for a few days, has been broken for 51/2 hours overnight but you didn’t know because the monitoring system your nerdy husband set up sends him text messages if your site’s broken and he switched his phone to silent and you’re really pissy but you have to be reasonably civil to him so that he will fix your website.
That’s annoying.
Hopefully the problem will be fixed today so that this doesn’t keep happening.
How embarrassing.
Hot on the heels of Super Happy Blog Fodder Monday, I have more fabulously gripping content.
Fe tagged me for a take a photo of your handbag meme. It may be sad but I’ve actually loved looking at other people’s versions of this post. Handbag voyeurism, baby.
This actually cheating for me as I have recently cleaned out and changed bags. It is usually far more disgusting.
Contents include:
I’m not passing it on to anyone specific, but if anyone does it let me know, cos, you know, I like to look.
Sometimes you have days, where the stars seem to align and create such positive happenings in your life that it must be meaningful. Today was such a day, only in reverse. Instead of fabulous joy and wonder at my most excellent luck, I feel decidedly grumpy and have decided that today’s events must be signs of some impending doom.
When we awoke this morning, the dog had been unable to hold on (we don’t have a doggie door) and had done an enormous poo by the back door. Had she alerted us to the fact that she needed to go, we would have assisted her but, no, she just quietly slinks out and lays it by the back door. She’s not a petite little thing either, she’s a very sturdily built black lab and hence, delivers large, sturdy logs.
I should have realised that this was not a good sign and headed back to bed. Waking up to a large turd on the floor is never good. Failing to take heed of the warning, we readied ourselves and headed for the supermarket.
When we arrived we couldn’t get a park in our usual spot and had to head around to the rear carpark. It did look rather busy but that’s to be expected with school now over for the year and Christmas looming large. I wasn’t too daunted.
We parked and I grabbed Grub out of the car and flipped her up against my shoulder. Apparently I misjudged that manoeuvre somewhat, as I ended up smacking her head into the car door. Naturally, she was inconsolable. She became so distraught that she vomited all over me and the sling, in which I usually carry her. I passed her to Beefcake so that I wipe myself clean with a spare blanket that was in the boot of the car. It was ever so glam, standing in the supermarket carpark, scooping chunky bits of curdled milk out of my cleavage.
We headed into the shops and encountered a family we know as soon as we walked through the doors. I was particularly pleased as my “readying myself” for the supermarket earlier in the morning had not included washing my hair and my top was wet and stinking of vomit.
The supermarket was crowded and busy. We intended to duck in and grab a few supplies and head home. It took over an hour and we filled the trolley. Once we managed to get out of there, the fun wasn’t over. I passed grub to Poss to hold, when we arrived home, so that I could unpack our shopping. She became distracted and dropped Grub on her head. It was only from couch height and she managed to grab her top before she hit, thereby lessening the impact. Still, poor Grub had reached the limits of her tolerance for our incompetent baby handling and my knee jerk reaction was to shriek “Oh, fuck Poss”. Yeah, I’m great. Two crying daughters.
To top it off, it appears that my Grub is now too heavy for me to carry in my current sling. My pelvis simply can’t take the strain. I am now so swollen and sore that I can’t really walk terribly well and will be relegated to the couch for the rest of the day.
The final icing on the cake was that the bank sent me a replacement card with my maiden name on it. I changed my name on our joint account two days after our wedding, five years ago. I have received several cards from them since then, all of which bore my married name. I now have to wait another week for a new card. Lovely.
I could take this as a sign that I really shouldn’t get out of bed or, as Beefcake suggested, be happy and rejoice in the blog fodder!
As I hulaed (Wii fit) my great big arse off this afternoon, I was reminded of how cruel and tactless children can be.
Rhubarb: “Hah! Wow mum, you have a really funny looking bum!”
Me: “Ah, really?”
Rhubarb: “Yeah, it’s like you’ve got four bum cheeks or something. It’s like a bum four-pack.”
Poss: “Hahaha. Yeah, you do Mum, it’s really funny.”
Me: “Yeah, thanks guys, that’s great.”
Beefcake: (obviously hadn’t been listening properly) “Surely you want a four pack?”
Me: “Not on my arse!”
Beefcake (trying to defend my arse’s honour): “Oh, look kids, (adjusts my clothing so they can see better) that’s top bit is just swelling from Mum’s dodgy pelvis*.”
Rhubarb: “Oh, right, well, it still looks funny**.”
Yeah, charming. I wonder does anyone else have such charming children??
* I am well aware that Wii hulaing is perhaps ill advised when my pelvis is misbehaving and swollen, to the point of causing my children to fall about on the floor in fits of hysterics. I am not terribly good at accepting my limitations in this area.
**When Rhubarb realised I had been a touch offended, this evening, I got an apology. I suppose he may not be completely evil and heartless.
