• We sold the high chair and the pram on Ebay. We didn’t get enough for the pram for me to feel that it was worth giving up what seems to be the essential symbol of babyhood*. I sobbed all day on Tuesday when it was being collected. Mostly because there will be no more babies. Partly because this means Grub really is a big girl now. A toddler and not a baby. I asked Beefcake if I could buy it back. It was a bit pathetic.
• I am having a little problem with chocolate licorice bullets at the moment. I always like them but at the moment I am unable to stop at just a few. I eat the whole bag, I have left them in the kitchen in the hope that having to get up to get more will reduce my intake. It is not working. I am a hopeless, hopeless addict.
• My sister Patchouli! has admitted to me that she has started her own blog. This is fine except that since she has known about my blog she has mocked me mercilessly and relentlessly. She has never read this blog, she just knows about it. She expects similar restraint from me, which of course I will provide. I really wish I didn’t have to though. I am dying to look. I have almost considered telling someone else about it so that they can look for me and tell me about it. Naturally I won’t but still, tempting.
• Beefcake reads this blog,which is sometimes handy if I am looking to send him some sort of coded message. So here it is: Go and get a vasectomy (In case you were wondering that’s code for “Go and get a vasectomy”).
• Beefcake has brought me the bag of bullets now. They are not long for this world.
• It is sooooo hot here I think I might melt. We have no air conditioner. We have borrowed a small portable one but our current finances do not extend to buying a new one. We’ll have to organise something in the next few days though because it’s getting dire.
• It’s pageant on Saturday. You may remember my posts from last year. I am sure that this year’s pageant will provide just as much fabulous blog fodder. Last year though it was drizzling and chilly enough that Grub had to wear a beanie. The predicted top for Saturday is 39°C. It will be quite a different day. I shall have to find a vantage point in the shade so that I am not overwhelmed by the heat. Also we are walking there as we can’t really justify taking the car and parking. It’s maybe a twenty minute walk across the parklands at most. Heat makes me lazy. I don’t really want to.
• I am addicted to scrabble on my iphone. I have at least ten games going at any one time. It is a deadly time waster as there is a chat function too so I play and chat to Patchouli! all the time.
• My coriander plant died because I forgot to cover it with some shade. It was less mature than my other herbs which are still hanging in there. Bum.
• Rhubarb has a frightening Fbook habit. I have had to get on there once already to remove some chat that offended his Aunt and Uncle. He couldn’t see the problem. The thing is, he gets 90 minutes a day total computer time. He has been sneaking time at school. Not pleased. He is becoming such a teenager. It’s scary.
• I’m thinking of doing my requalification and going back to work a couple of days a week. I have to jump through a few hoops to be able to practise again as it has been four-and-a-half years since I worked but the money is needed. Beefcake would be able to look after the kids because he works from home. On those days he would just mostly work in the evening, which is fine. He is not overly keen, worrying that I will not manage with the pelvis and things but I think it will be fine. Worth thinking about, I guess.

*This is strange because all of my children but particularly Grub were carried in a sling all the time until near their first birthday.
Grub only used that pram about two dozen times really. Still. *sniff*

Mastitis.

Just to really stick it to me, my right breast is red and swollen and burning hot thanks to a bite I recieved as a parting gift from Grub at bedtime last night.

Because, you know, the universe was worried it hadn’t fucked with me enough.

I feel like death but actually surprisingly cheerful for someone whose right tit looks like exploding.

It’s the sunshine. I can’t stay mad at the universe when the sun is shining.

Also, the Grub, despite feeding like a rabid piranha, is soooooooo cute at the moment.

She came out with a new word today which illustrates just beautifully that she is a [insert surname here].

“Bum”. Clear as a bell, perfectly articulated, on demand.

She’s one of us. Only just 15  months old today and she’s saying “bum”. That’s my girl.

Also, operation sleep-in-own-bed is going well, really well.

So, despite the mastitis, and the pelvis and my thumb and other assorted maladies, fuck you right back universe!

I win.

I have written three or four beginnings to this post and deleted them.

I do not have my creative flow. My blogging mojo is absent.

I shall put a brave face on it, though and bravely push on with a bullet pointy type post that requires very little of my brain to be functional.

To make it interesting, let us divide the bullet points into two categories. “Awesome things that are great and happy and light up my life or are just funny” and “Whingey things that I could spare you but will not because I am selfish like that”

Awesome things that are great and happy and light up my life or are just funny:

• Grub has decided to cut me some small slack. She has cut down her overnight breastfeeding to between 0 and 3 feeds overnight – yes you read that correctly, she had her first ever night without a feed during the night – and she has agreed to sometimes sleep for several hours in her own bed. I will admit that this is a very new trend -  she has only done it twice – but I declare it to be the new norm. I will shortly be  the proud owner of one of those modern, new-fangled sleeping-through-the-night-and-putting-themselves-to-sleep children I have heard about. I can feel it in my waters.
• Spring has sprung. There is sunshine, there are butterflies, there are flowers (unfortunately with sniffle-making pollen to make my eyes water but let us not dwell on that). I feel as though a great grey shroud has been lifted from my person. Sunshine makes me happy.
• Beefcake has been working very hard this month, doing a bunch of very long days in order to haul some projects at work towards their deadlines. This may sound like it is not such an awesome thing but what it does mean is that the slight overspend that we had with the original kitchen renovation, which has been hanging over each month and making me feel stressed and depressed, will be taken care of. We will be back in fine shape. It hasn’t really been a big deal but it would be nice to have a month where I do not have to plan our spending down to the very cent. It will be lovely to be able to purchase one or two things I have been putting off for myself because they were not 100% strictly speaking necessary. I feel much relieved.
• The few extra dollars we might have will mean that I can perhaps paint the bathroom or re-tile the shower recess or re-enamel the very old bath. A bath should not have a rough abrasive surface. It will only be a minor bathroom refresh as opposed to a proper bathroom renovation as we will one day demolish this bathroom and it would be wasteful to replace it now but I am sure I can get it looking quite nice. I should show you what it looks like now – remind me to do that.
• Beefcake and I bought a rare and much appreciated coffee to get us through playgroup on Friday morning. In the cafe where we purchased our take-away beverages, there was a family (two older parents and an adult son) eating fish and chips. It was nine thirty in the morning. We thought maybe they were tourists, they had the look of being not quite local about them. We thought perhaps they had just arrived and it was dinner time where they come from, or maybe fish and chips is a breakfast food in their country. I don’t know but I thought it was a bit odd. Would you go the deep fried seafood and chips for brekkie?
• It is Poss’ birthday in less than two weeks and she has requested a shopping spree to redecorate her room with nice things. New bedding and cushions and such. Beefcake is completely puzzled that someone would want this as a birthday gift but I am excited  because it will actually be quite a fun thing to do. She has already chosen a new quilt cover and is planning a colour scheme she wants to work on – cute! I shouldn’t say that, she’s going to be eleven, that’s practically a teenager.
• Also on the topic of Poss’ burgeoning adolescence. The other day she was excitedly telling me about a school project when, to my delight, she threw in the tweeny term “totally random”. I have been unable to resist taunting her. She hates me. What fun.

Whingey things that I could spare you but will not because I am selfish like that:

• My body is an unpredictable and vile hell-monster with it’s own independent and beastly identity. I was feeling fab on Friday and went to the park with the small kids and the friend that used to come to playgroup (you remember) and her two girls. I had a spring in my step. It was great. I felt as though things were on the up and up. As some sort of cosmic punishment for feeling good (yes, I am melodramatic) I dislocated my wrist when I picked Grub up off of the slide. No odd movements or anything. Just picked her up. I couldn’t bear to tell my friend. I feel like a hyperchondriac so I grabbed my wrist and we walked home – lucky the park is around two minutes away. My wirst was very swollen and purple that night but is beginning to feel better now. My pelvis has arced up again quite badly. I am on a neverending merry-go-round of crap.
• Beefcake is working insane amounts. It will not stop this week. He will not be being paid extra for anything he does now either and he is mostly picking up the slack for other, slackarse people. Very frustating but at the same time I must remember that he is here, at home with us and we are actually extremely luck – so shut up Ali.
• I have been comfort eating. It is a pain/depression thing. I am usually pretty good but I have dropped the ball with my eating and I feel quite grumpy with myself. It is made worse by the fact that I am still carrying the vast majority of my baby weight from Grub and I can not exercise at all really. I feel really guilty about it and sometimes that seems to actually make it worse. It is a whole self-perpetuating cycle of self-loathing. I need to take control of it but some days having to be really careful about what I eat seems like a step too far. Like it will just be the thing to push me over the edge. I need to get a grip.
• Also, my foot hurts.

There you have it people. You’ree lucky I don’t blog more often really, aren’t you?

I just wrote a post and deleted it.

I am feeling indecisive.

I keep reading other people’s blog posts and then marking them to comment later because I never seem to have the time, right that minute. I mean to come back and comment later but I almost never do.

I have sick babies again, and Foxtel (to those who have enquired, we do have the IQ and it is now being well used to record things) both of which are keeping me very busy. Ooh and let us not forget the oven, which has been used to create something at least once each day since it was connected. There has been cake wallowing left and right.

I have had a rather all-consuming pregnancy scare. I am still a touch dubious about it but two pee-on-a-sticks later I must suppose that my bizarre pregnancy-style symptoms are either in my mind or a sign that my hormones are just doing something odd. Unfortunately, despite PMS style mood swings, I still have no periods so I am prone to paranoia about a fifth child. Especially when (as happened on my birthday) we have one of our patented “crap contraception moments”. So, I have what I call “burning tits of fire”, which has always been a dead-certain sign that I am up the duff. As I am not, I suppose it is just a feature of Grub’s around the clock feeding or something. It is messing with my fragile mind.

Beefcake is back working today, which has been surprisingly lovely. You wouldn’t think it would be different at all, considering he is still here in the house, cluttering it up. But it is. When he is working, everything goes just fine. There is total harmony. What terrible creatures of habit we are.

The big kids are still on holidays and, despite the fact that they are both noisy and smelly, I am mostly enjoying their company, although Rhubarb’s love of Spongebob is driving me slightly mental. Every time I leave the room with the tv on I come back in to find it (or something equally awful) on the screen.

I used to manage to blog almost every day, or at least several times a week. Where did I find the time to do that? How has that time just evaporated? Who bloody knows.

Delicious little Grub,

On this day, one year ago, you came into this world.

Your birth was the most profoundly joy-filled and peaceful experience of my life.

Born in the dining room of our home, the whole family watched you enter the world.

You swam from your comfort inside of my body and into my hands.

I have held you in my arms ever since, although often now you will stray away from my reach as you explore your world.

You are bold and strong-willed and independent.

You are always busy. My little bee. You love to run and to climb.

You are musical (we’re not sure where that comes from). You will tap out a beat on anything and you’ll play anything that makes a tune and sing along.

You have brought such joy to all of our lives as a sister and a daughter.

You were the missing element to our family.

Now that we have you, we feel complete.

Happy birthday little G.

You are one year old today.

Mama loves you.

I would like to be able to say that today was a brownie free day.

I would, truly I would.

I can’t lie though. Today was not entirely brownie free. I had just one brownie although I am planning that tonight will not be entirely custard free if Beefcake drags himself away from his most demanding mistress (his laptop) and gets his bum into the kitchen to make it for me.

I have reasons, I have reasons.

Poor little Grub develped a fever yesterday evening. My children are very good at spiking bizarre and unexplained temparatures that appear while you have your back turned and then disappear with as much mystery.  Unfortunately poor Grub still has a fever. She has no other obvious symptoms, she is perhaps slightly snotty, her eyes are a bit swollen but there is really nothing  obviously wrong with her apart from a fever and the fact that she will not allow me to put her down. At all. Even to go to the toilet. She has suffered a cuddle from Beefcake a couple of times throughout the day but only for a few minutes. She is not a happy little possum.

In addition to poor Grub’s clinginess and constant breastfeeding (which incidentally meant that I had an eleven month old sleeping ON me all night) Pudding made a late night visit to our bed and insisted on staying. I won’t pretend this is unusual, particularly at the moment, ever since we told him that we were moving he has been making regular trips to our bed and staying. Last night was particularly nice though because he had a little accident in our bed. He hasn’t wet the bed in some time but naturally the perfect time would be in our bed when we already have a sick baby situation.

Now, if you will, imagine that there had been a leaky nappy incident the previous night and you had been too lazy rushed off your feet to wash the resulting dirty linen and what you have is a sheet load (ba doom boom) of uriney washing. The laundry was hip deep with pissy linen and p.j’s. And the nappies were already in the washing machine. Then, for good measure, just throw in the fact that Pudding did not go back to sleep immediately after the peeing incident this morning but instead lay awake in our bed muttering and singing softly to himself while I held Grub and listened to the dulcet tones of the garbage truck trawling down our street and you will see.

You will see that I have been in a shitful mood all day and have had to plaster a grin on my face and pretend to thrill in preparing lunch and caring for the preschooler with a very grumpy and sooky baby welded to my hip because Beefcake has lots of very important and urgent work to do and cannot be interrupted.

This is the downside of having him here all of the time, I fear. I feel like he should be at my beck and call and similarly, his employers feel that he should complete some of the tasks they have allotted to him. Quite the dillemna. Given that we have just bought a new mortgage it seems that the worky things will have to win for the time being. Nevermind, he goes on leave for more than a week as of next Wednesday so I will be sure to get my money’s worth during that period.

Where was I?

Oh yes, brownies and custard. I am deserving, yes?

It seems I am not cut out for this tense waiting business.

I am a bundle of nervous energy.

I went and spent the day with Patchouli! and Spawn #1 and #2 today. Spawn #2 is now three months old and he is chubbalicious and sweet and smiley and delightful. Spawn #1 is suffering badly from the green eyed monsters and displays his distaste for the state of affairs by quite weird and erratic behaviour. It’s a hard gig this Auntie business. I adore my nephews and feel very close to them but that leads to the temptation to tell Spawn #1 off when he is being aggressive and bizarre and that would not help at the moment. Poor little guy. He is giving Patchouli! a run for her money. She is finding it all a bit much and feels a failure as a mother. She is, of course, a wonderful mother and Spawn #1 is a gorgeous boy who is just finding life a bit hard to deal with at the moment. New babies suck the way they take all of Mummy and Daddy’s attention. You can see his little mind is crying out “Usurper!” but he is very sweet with his brother, poor little man.

Where was I?

Oh, the house, yes. We have not heard from the agent. Well, actually, she accidentally called tonight (meant to dial someone else) and told Beefcake to hang in there as the vendors are still “mulling it over”. This is good as it means, at least, that they have not said no to our offer. They are considering it. There is hope.

I think about it constantly. I have planned the kitchen (it needs a new one as soon as we move in because the current one consists of a stove and two cupboards) and priced the appliances I would like to buy. I have planned where all of the furniture will go and priced some built-in storage we would need in part of the house. I have chosen paint colours for some of the things I would like to change. It is not good. My poor little mind is struggling with the concept that they may refuse our offer. Beefcake is this close (about a milimetre) to telling me to be quiet. I am making him nervous. He is doing a remarkable job of going about his business and not worrying about it. I am reminding him every five seconds by messaging him links to an oven I like or a kitchen I think is shiny and pretty. He has told me I need to calm down.

I am trying but it is sooooooo exciting.

I shall fall apart if we don’t get it.

I can not be mature about it.

I shall simply collapse in a heap.

Somebody tell me something mature. Make me be a grown-up. I’m embarrassing myself.