"If I Am Not For Me, Then Who Is For Me?"

*Apparently a Jewish Proverb. I read that on Twitter today so it must be true, eh?

If I don't look out for myself, then who the hell else is going to?

The one who almost 8 years ago promised to "love honour and cherish, in sickness and in health blah-blah" is certainly not showing any signs of "being for me", looking out for me nor for supporting me in this, one of the hardest battles I have ever had to face.

And you've read the condensed version of my life's battles. There's been some corkers, hey?

Drinking alcohol in front of me with friends and joking about "now this is really rubbing it in": not supportive.  Screaming at me (in front of the kids) that I have no idea how much I am costing him personally: not supportive.  Making every day so stressful by the yelling - always the yelling - at the kids, that if I hear his voice once more I am going to fucking explode.  Not asking, not ever asking how I am feeling without the alcohol: Not.Fucking.Supportive.

So.

I am for me.

I cannot stand to be in my living room because the associations with alcohol are so strong. I cannot be in the kitchen at dinner time because my automatic response is to get a glass and go to the fridge. And then I remember..."Ohhh, DAMMIT!" I cannot cope with the constant noise and the demands and the yelling.

I want to be alone, so I can have the shakes and cry in private and not in front of my children. I want to be alone so I can hear my own thoughts. I want to be alone so I can feel something other than frustration with my children - because lets face it, boy (5) + girl (almost-3) = nightmare - and anger at my husband.

The only way I can see how to do this is to put my hand up and say "Help me! I can't do this alone anymore." To voluntarily go into hospital and do this with people who know what they are doing, who know how to get people through detox and who are not going to ignore my fairly obvious distress. I had my first panic attack since the birth of my daughter the other day, for no reason other than I was in my son's classroom and there were other adults there. The second was a day later in the car with MB, simply because I was with him.

I need rest. I need sleep. I need quiet so I can hear myself. If I cant hear my own thoughts, or if I cant even process information because of what my body is dealing with, all that happens is anxiety and panic.

If I cant hear myself, how can I help myself?



 If I cant help myself, how on earth am I going to be able to help these  two precious, beautiful children?


I am for me.

I am also for them.

The Other Me

Has Another Blog. 

Apparently a Secret Blog, for all the traffic it is getting.  I feel decidedly unloved over there.

Perhaps some of you kind folks who still lurk here and maybe still get my feed could pop on over and say hi, and follow me there too?

I'm torn about posting in two places.  Should I pull the pin here and just do my brain dump on SparklePanda Design?  Should I keep the two seperate and try to maintain some veneer of professionalism?

Hmmm.  Until Decisions Have Been Made (which is unlikely to be in a hurry) a comment or two on my Attempts At A Life would be appreciated.

Pretty, non?

Brain Freeze

I dont know where my life has gone. Its all dishes, washing, tidying up toys, feeding the Spud, playing with the Spud, wrapping the Spud and starting again. Internet? What's that?

Spudly turned 1. He had two parties, one with his G-Unit from the Block and the other with the family, shared with his Great Grandpop who was 85 two days before Spudly's birthday.

He doesnt just walk now, he runs everywhere. His little dinosaur arms have straightened out and he walks like a big person. He understands about a dozen words, and quite by accident we discovered this when I said "look at your big belly" and he patted his tummy. Freakin' genius!

The Burrito Wrap no longer manages to contain Captain Squirmy-Pants, who regularly escapes at night and is driving us insane AGAIN.

Monkey Boy is all sorts of freaking out about starting his practical teaching placement next week and isnt he fun to be around right now. (Hint: no.)

I have gone back to being so tired my brain cells barely bump into each other anymore.

Here endeth the worst blog post ever.

Oh Yeh, I Have A Blog...

Seems I forgot. Sorry 'bout that.

But on the plus side I have a garden full of veggies and three rooms that are Spud-proof, which is lucky since he can now stand unsupported for 20 seconds, crawl at full-speed and is sleeping being put to bed in a COT in his OWN ROOM!

And, AND: Spudly has learnt the art of the tantrum. Food on plate equals food for him as far as he's concerned. It doesnt matter that its food he cant eat or wouldnt like. Mamma food = Spudly food, so dish up or screaming will ensue. Luckily I have learnt to deal with this behaviour before with our cat Basil. Now if I could just find that squirty bottle.

Messy Kweznuz

Right. I've just spent about a lifetime's worth of my download quota trying to get my template back up and running and I have to say "Blogger 1.1 easier MY ASS".

Off to the in-laws for their Griswald version of Kweznuz (which we do not celebrate, but have it forced upon us nonetheless) so things will just have to be unkempt until I get back.

In the meantime, some cuteness for you all and whatever it is that you do at this time of year, I hope it brings you joy.

From us lot to you lot, Messy Kweznuz.

We Are SO Hosed...

One day shy of his 7th month, Spudly decided that crawling is for chumps and stands up on his own and beats his toy box to death.


We are so not ready for this. Arent they supposed to crawl for at least a few months, just to get you ready for the idea that your house is actually a death trap?

Send help. And possibly restraints.

Sleepy

For so long I have said to myself "I really must do something with my photography again." And what have I done? Nothing.

No more! Lala alerted me to JPG Magazine, the website where amateur photographers can submit their best work for publication. After much tearing out of hair that my photos arent good enough, I submitted this shot of Spudly falling asleep at my boob for their next issue.

I sure would appreciate it if you'd go vote for my submission if you deem it worthy.

Still Alive But Trapped Under Something Small And Screaming

Yeh, good one. Blog about how you dont get to do anything that resembles your old life and all you are is a wiper of bums and noses and then not be able to do ANYTHING other that wiping bums and noses for three whole weeks.

Perhaps I should blog about how all I am is a lady of leisure with wads of cash.

So, you know, there's no time for tales of dering-do right now, because something much more important has come up.

The Spud has today reached the grand old age of six months. SIX MONTHS!!!! At exactly this time six months ago I was about to have the epidural inserted, having given up all hope of dilating all on my very own like a big girl, and it was still 13 hours to go before he was pulled out of my twat with the Salad Tongs From Hell.

Right now the Bestest Baby Ever can sit unaided, manipulate two objects at once, play independantly with his toys, babble incessantly but most importantly says "Mamma". He loves solid foods, adores avocado and should probably never again be given beetroot unless I particularly want all objects stained purple as it goes in or his butt stained black as it comes out.

In the first few weeks of his life, I kept wondering when my life was going to get back to normal. Oh the naivete! Now I know better: that this is the new normality. I cant wear dresses or flimsy tops that allow no access to boobs. I cant stay up past 9.30 or stay in bed past 6am. I cant eat all the cheese I want without there Being Consequences. I cant go to the movies without some major organising. I cant shop for new clothes because every time I go near Target he starts screaming. Dinner has to be eaten quickly or or god knows Someone will start crying and it will go cold. Long showers without worrying whats going on in the living room dont exist. The washing AND the dishes have to be done everyday because there is no time to stand at the sink for an hour catching up with every piece of cutlery we own. I consider where to go out for lunch based upon how baby-friendly their facilities are. I dont care if my clothes are covered in baby puke. I dont care that every decision I make has to take into account a small nuggety type person, and I dont care that I cant do all those things previously mentioned.

Right now he is sitting on the floor on his playmat looking at me and saying "Mamamamama" and smiling. Oh, okay, now he's straining. And now he's stinky.

Its normality. And I love it.

Spring-a-Ding-Ding

Spring has officially sprung, and with temperatures of 26 degrees (78F) I'm a bit happy about that.

This unseasonal weather and record-breaking drought brought to you by Global Warming. Here's a tour of the freakish happenings in our garden...

This is our mystery fruit tree. It came up five years ago, and this is the first time it has had blossom on it. I think it might be an Apricot, and I'm going to name it after myself; Apricotus Pandelicious

This is another mystery tree that came up on its own. We tried to kill it and it came back. Turned out to be a peach. Bonus.

Here's our Wisteria, climbing over the outdoor dunny. This one came up on its own too. I even tried to dig it up and thought I'd killed it. It came back stronger than ever. This Wisteria WANTS to live.

And yes, that did used to be a lawn. I think we may find El Dorado when we slash it.

Delerious

I got nothin'.

As Cherice pointed out in her comment on the last post, I am currently the Minister for Everything (which doesnt seem to include Minister For Eating All The Pies, sadly) in this house and Spudly is definately not making the job any easier. Whinge whinge cry, cry cry puke, whinge whinge gas, gas gas brake...

Anyway, I've finally got my shit together and updated my Flikr account, so if you click on the clicky think over there in the sidebar you can check out more photos of Sir Whingealot.

And here's one we prepared earlier; Spudly Does Solids.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Mamma still needs gin because she didnt get the birthday oysters on account of the fact that Someone wouldnt stop screaming in the car on the way back home for dinner, ergo straight to bed (him) without any dinner (me).

I did have a very nice birthday, thankyou very much. I even got to be assaulted by a kangaroo

and stalked by a peacock.

In addition, Spudly, now being a Very Big Boy, graduated from the capsule to the car seat...

and on the day he turned 4 months old, he grabbed his left foot with both hands and shoved it in is mouth.

We're very proud.

The shit that had hit the fan has been dealt with but has left a godawful stench, which I am currently trying to overpower with patchouli. Okay, okay, its not patchouli, its red wine. Will write about this later, maybe.

Monkey Boy goes in for surgery on his shoulder on Thursday, after a 2 year wait. It will be wonderful when its healed and he can do stuff without pain, but until then I get to be the Nursemaid, Chief Cook, Bottle-Washer and Sole Parent, and Wont That Be Fun.

I beg to observe, that, of all the boys in the world, I believe this is the best boy.

Paraphrasing Dickens, of course, but it's true. We have the best boy.

I wasn't really aware of how developmentally accelerated Spudly is until last night, when we visited his new friend who is 4 weeks old. New Friend is smaller than the Spud was at birth, but weight-wise not significantly so. But even now, at one month old, he looks like Spud did at 4 days. Its in the eyes, in the head control and in his interactions.

We had to double-check this by going through all our photos this morning. Spud stopped looking like a newborn and started looking like a switched-on little person at one week. The difference just blows me away.

I'm guessing that somewhere in the chaos of the last 14 weeks we've stimulated the right pathways in his brain, the ones that tell him the world is interesting and that people are great and he is safe and secure. He's the only baby I've ever met that loves...LOVES...everyone.

And look...look how much the formula agrees with him:


And just because I'm feeling like an exceptionally proud mamma today, some gratuitous cute Spudly shots.

In Which We Battle The Mucous...Oh The Mucous

You know you love your child when you have mucous secreting itself from (almost) every orifice, your ears are plugged up with something the consistency of road tar and your throat currently contains a rock covered in sandpaper and you still dont mind being up at 4am rocking him (hopefully) back to sleep. So this is parenthood.

As it turned out, he didnt go back to sleep. The 4am screamfest turned into a 5.30am breakfast snack and we're all still awake and arent we jolly about that.

Who are these morons saps people who think that having a child will help their (usually failing) marriage? What on earth would possess someone to think that having 2 adults sick enough to want to die and a baby with a temperature and some weird-ass cough thing going on who hasnt pooed in 3 days but continues to produce the MOTHER of all stinky farts and will NOT settle down and go to sleep is a sure-fire way of bringing you closer to your significant other? Because when the shrieking starts and drills through your head and your partner has to yell to be heard over the noise...then...then running away with Jack Sparrow looks like a Really Good Idea.

What A Difference A Year Makes

One year ago today two people who loved each other very much did something most couples take for granted: they had sex for fun. I know. I KNOW!! They didnt think about propping hips, about the sperm-killing qualities of massage lotion or about having to "clean the pipes" beforehand. They didnt care about the time of the month. Can you imagine??? It wasnt so much that they had given up on ever being able to conceive; they were just.so.tired of thinking about these things all.the.time.

One year ago today, possibly the one remaining non-ugly sperm somehow managed to make its way past the massage lotion and the thickened cervical mucous (without falling out) all the way up to the fallopian tube to meet one of the eggs that had been released that month without going polycystic. They made polite small talk: possibly even asked do you come here often? Then, much like the people they belonged to, they decided straight away that they should get together and make a baby.

One year ago today the thing the medicos said couldnt happen, happened.

One year.

And we've gone from this:

to this:

And it blows me away every single day.

Got Poop?

Coz we sure do.

After three days of nothing in the nappy department 'cept for a lot of moistness, yesterday we were greeted with a rock-hard nugget which seemed to have acted as a cork for the TORRENT of plasticine horridness that followed for the rest of the day. Monkey Boy came back from the changing table, handed the Spud to me and sat in the corner, rocking. He may need therapy.

Lesson learned: eating lots and lots of stinky cheese may get things moving, but you'll wish it hadn't.

In other news just in:

Spudly tells us exactly what he thinks of his eskimo suit. Note configuration of left hand. (I swear on all things panda-y that this was not a set-up)



Spud has also embraced the concepts of Reaching For Things, Enjoying The Pram and Throwing Up On Every Item Of Clothing.

Next stop: Mensa.

Painting With Light

Back here I mentioned that one of the things I wanted to do with my Hour-A-Day was to mess around with my photography. I may not have mentioned before, but I'm Rather Good with the old camera lucida. Since I moved to my current abode 6 years ago I havent had a darkroom ,so my photography has slipped by the wayside. Its time to rectify this situation.

I recently read Portrait In Sepia by Isabel Allende. In it, the heroine of the story discovers her love of photography. Her description of what photography means to her rang so true with me that it prompted me to get my shit together and return to the medium that allows me to express what excites or moves me in this world.


If you observe an ordinary object or body very closely, it is transformed into something sacred. The camera can reveal secrets the naked eye or mind cannot capture; everything disappears except for the thing that is the focus of the picture. The photograph is an exercise in observation, and the result is always a stroke of luck... The camera is a simple apparatus, even the most inept person can use it; the challenge lies in creating with it that combination of truth and beauty called art. That quest is above all spiritual. I seek truth and beauty in the transparency of an autumn leaf, in the perfect form of a seashell on the beach, in the curve of a woman's back, in the texture of an ancient tree trunk, but in more elusive forms of reality. Sometimes, working with an image in my darkroom, the soul of a person appears, the emotion of an event or vital essence of some object; at that moment, gratitude explodes in my heart and I cry. I cant help it. Such revelations are the goal of my work.

With the purchase of a rather cool digital camera, and now a decent computer with decent software, I dont need to closet myself away in a darkened room for hours at night to be able to produce my art. I can sit in my loungeroom, with the wood fire going and Spudly at the boob, and exercise my creativity while being sociable at the same time.

Spudly's Rockin' Rocker

Here he is. Introducing the fastest feet in the Antipodes:





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An Exceptional Child

• Since birth he has slept through the night.
• Since birth he has been able to hold his head up.
• At two weeks, he smiled for the first time, indicating poo was on its way.
• At four weeks he smiled properly, indicating mum was a bit of a goofball.
• At five weeks he rolled over, but has chosen not to repeat this performance since.
• At 6 weeks he almost laughed.
• At 7 weeks he started making gurgly noises.
• At 7 weeks he indicated his preference for Jamiroquai to de-stress.

I'm hoping at 8 weeks he decides that a daytime sleep is a Great Idea Mum.

Thought Of The Day

I've had lots of thoughts running through my head recently. Usually they're doing just that though; running through. They dont like to hang around much at the moment. Perhaps the decor needs changing? Some of these thoughts I've wanted to turn into blog posts but it seems that whenever I sit down to write nothing comes out. My brain is a big fat zero.

I'm sure from an evolutionary perspective this is a good thing. Nature can't have us women running around and paying attention to solving world hunger or trying to understand what's going on with oil pricing or exactly what that is the cat just threw up. We have to pay attention to the small squirming thing that wants to attach itself to our breasts AGAIN, and we have to not get distracted from doing so. My intellectual side tells me I should be doing something more "productive" with my day, presumably writing that treatise on The Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things. But unlike at university, when suddenly needing to paint the kitchen seemed a valid distraction from swatting for exams*, the non-intellectual pursuit of sitting and feeding or rocking and bouncing or pacing back and forth while feeding and rocking IS the main event. It IS the "more productive" thing I should be doing.

I always felt like I needed to be doing something really important and being a great success. Its really hard to get my head around the fact that the most important thing I can be doing is being a Stay At Home Mum.






*I actually did this. Ist year Classics exam. Painted the kitchen blue.

So I'm Hormonal. Sue Me.

Lunch yesterday was really lovely. Monkey Boy's sister Vegan Girl and her partner went OTT with the food, which was divine. Monkey-Mamma went OTT with the provision of alcohol, some of which unfortunately ended up on Felix's head courtesy of bad mothering on my part. Monkey Boy's other sister, Hippy Chick, went OTT with the high-pitched squeals of delight at "Gidget Face".

Now, I'm not one to be all materialistic and pout about "not getting stuff". Birthdays, Chrisbo, Valentine's Day; they all pass me by and I could care less. But sometimes...sometimes there are occasions that deserve to be marked and acknowledged in some small but meaningful way.

I know he's only 5 weeks old, so getting to the shops is a little difficult, but I do feel that after all I've done for him*, Felix could have got his representative** to cobble together a little something that celebrated the fact that this was my first Mothers' Day and that it might actually mean something to me.

Sitting up late on my own to watch the special Mothers Day screening of Love Actually with a MD card on my mantelpiece sent to me by one of my dear "internet friends" didnt do much to cement my feelings of being appreciated.

That is all I shall say on the matter.



* I hereby swear I will never use this phrase in parenting ever again.
**Not pointing fingers, but someone hairy who likes bananas.