Revenge of the MILK

When I posted last night, I wasn't quite expecting the flood of understanding and support from you, my readers. Thankyou all so much. I re-read my post this morning and wish to clarify that sweet Anna-Lucia was weepy last night not because I went postal on her (I didn't) but because she finally got her teeth brushed by Daddy. And boy, they need a good brushing. She has a bit of a problem with tartar and not letting her parents get a brush close to her teeth ("I do it myself!")

I also wasn't expecting Mr de Elba to fix my video problem using Cyberlink (thankyou my love!) I will post that bit of gorgeousness tomorrow morning.

And I wasn't expecting Joseph to sleep well overnight! Thankyou dear boy-child. Mummy needed that good sleep last night.

I'm still not completely sure what was making him cranky, but I'm pretty sure it was milk-related. Quantity, not quality. Somehow I find it hard to believe that slight changes in a mother's diet can change her milk from - well, from mother's milk into poison.

Have you heard of this book?

I've never read it, but the title sure is catchy. I'm secretly intrigued.

Well, it's been a bit like that here, although the anatomy involved has been the Milk Production Setup. It's supposed to produce as much as your baby needs - to increase supply if the baby asks for more than he's getting, and to decrease supply if there's lots of unneeded milk left over all the time.

Well, here the milk is on the increase and it seems to flow very quickly. My shirts are getting soaked and I'm stuffing washers (flannels) into my bra, effectively inflating my profile to a giant F or G-cup.

Joseph is pulling off during feeds in an attempt not to choke on the fast-flowing milk, and vomiting copious amounts even after a short feed. There's milk a-plenty, flowing fast and furious. Maybe this is why he's been so squirmy and cranky.

It's Revenge of the Milk. Scary stuff.

Parenting - ur doin it rong

Do you believe in jinxing things? I do now. Didn't I just say that things were going well in my last blog post?

Until Saturday, I was floating on clouds things were going so well, and I was having such wonderful sleep. Now this pretty much sums up the success of my parenting over the long, lonely weekend:

(That's tears there.)

Poor little Joseph - he's had a few difficult days. Lots of crying, vomiting, grizzling, patchy feeds, and weird things going on in Nappyland. Not much decent sleep, and an inability to sleep at all unless he's lying on me (exhausting) or sucking my finger (a bad idea. He is becoming unhealthily attached.)



And I'd just enjoyed a week of Joseph sleeping most of the night in his own cot. I had been getting some very good sleep, and had been feeling so relaxed and happy that I could wake up, feed Joseph and put him down in his cot, only to wake again a few hours later.

Nat and Anna have been fighting and leaving toys everywhere - just everywhere. When a two-year-old learns to shout the phrase "I'm not lying!" you know that (a) she has an older sibling, and (b) they have not been getting along well.

I have not been playing Mrs Playschool and entertaining them all day (bad mother-of-a-newborn!!), although I did overcome my lifelong hatred of playdough and make a batch for them. Maybe that counts for something?

On the positive side, I cleaned the kitchen on Friday and it looked fantastic! I even mopped the floors, although the amount of dirt underfoot the very next day would indicate I did that 'rong' too. I got McDonalds for dinner on Friday night just so that I didn't have to mess up the spotless kitchen and have to clean it up again. And then I worked out that my McChicken burger meal contributed to more than 50% of my recommended daily intake of fat.

And to add insult to complete parenting failure, I have been trying to give you a TOTALLY GORGEOUS POST for days, and I CANNOT GET IT TO WORK! I have a 3-minute video that I want to crop down to it's cutest 1:30 to show you, and do you think I can do it? Me, who got through school, university, and life (albeit hanging on with my teeth?)

I CAN'T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not in Picasa - I get the same problem that all these people get - not in Windows Movie Maker - not even in the big guns - Premiere Pro! I am trying everything to get you this video, but it's not working! I wish I had someone who wanted to help me!

Parenting, Blogging, Life. ur doin it rong.

My Shame

Since the birth of Joseph, I have been interested to see whether my Terrible, No-Good, Falling-Apart Pelvis would get any better. It hasn't. I think it's worse.

I'm not going to go into how excruciating it gets after I have buckled three kids into their carseats at the shops, or how I've tried not to scream in pain when climbing into bed at night. Sometimes I just grab my right leg and haul it into bed or into the car, simply because I can't lift it using trunk & leg muscles without nearly passing out from the pain.

I'm one step away from going back to another physiotherapist. The only reason I'm not taking that step is after seeing my last two physios, I have a pretty good understanding of the problem, the anatomy, and the exercises I need to do to strengthen the muscles that should hold the whole lot together. I've also got a nifty one-sided stretch to do in order to relax the muscle that hitches the right side of the pelvis upwards, keeping it out of alignment. And a stretch for the poor little glutes that knot up to compensate for the pain - finally I can do this stretch now that I no longer have a giant belly in the way of where my leg needs to wrap across the front of my body to relieve this literal pain in the ass.

What to do? Well, tonight I did a little belly dancing to the Newsboys in the kitchen. Because it made sense and because the Newsboys are the best. You can disagree with me, but you would be wrong.

Now you're shocked and amazed because you're thinking I've been doing full-on, proper belly dancing. Not so. It was just the walking around with wiggly hips - the stuff you do in your first belly-dancing lesson. But it gave me an opportunity to hold a posture, tighten the muscles I need to work, and move a bit.

[Aside - My memory is not great, and I could be wrong, but I think maybe LDHBE was in my belly-dancing class with me about a decade ago. Such a vague recollection.]

So now we get to the shameful bit.

Picture me with a not-so-tiny baby boy asleep in my arms, dodging two crazy big kids high on each other's presence and the Newsboys, processing slowly around the kitchen going stamp-wiggle, stamp-wiggle, stamp-wiggle in time to the music.

And what was so shameful about it?

I broke a sweat.

Little Joseph

I can't tell you how much I am enjoying little Joseph!

Part of it is being more relaxed and confident than I was first and second times as a mother. Part of it is being so stinkin' thankful that he's alive and well. But a large part of it is because he is so chilled-out.

I'll always remember the first few days with baby Nat. He popped out of me, opened his tiny mouth and roared like a lion. He repeated his roaring many times in the next few days. I used to look into his red, screwed-up face and say, "There's a lot more of that coming over the next few months. Years." And there was.

Baby Anna-Lucia popped out of me and in a similar fashion, opened her tiny mouth and roared like a lioness. Again, I wasn't naive enough not to know there was plenty more where that came from.

But Joseph only seems to cry when he's hungry for milk, having pain in his tummy from that same milk, or because he needs to suck something to remind him of the milk. He never seems to cry for no good reason. I am shocked and aghast. I don't think babies are supposed to work this way.

When he does cry, he has a very quiet cry. Granted, he does a loud snort in between each cry, but the actual cries are quiet. Maybe like the roary little mews of a lion cub. I don't know. Either way, it seems unusual.

Today, I took him to the shops. I sat in the Coffee Club with my chai latte and decaf caramel latte (hey if you've got 2 for 1 hot drinks with your VIP Club card, you gotta use it, right?) remembering the time I sat in Gloria Jeans two years ago, trying to squeeze some miserable drops of enjoyment out of a coffee while I juggled a tiny red screaming baby girl. People glared at me as if I was pinching her to deliberately make her cry. I didn't enjoy that coffee at all.

Today I drank my chai latte, my decaf caramel latte and a whole wine-bottle-full of cold water while Joseph slept in the pram! Nobody glared at me. I enjoyed every last drop. I discovered I prefer the chai. I congratulated myself on finally buying new face washers for the kids and four funky shirts for Nat. I chuckled at a little boy who, when admonished by his mother for publicly fishing something large from his nose, loudly promised her, "It's okay! I'll put it back in my nose!!"

Good times. And having little Joseph with me asleep in his pram only helped me enjoy it more.

I can't tell you how much I am enjoying little Joseph!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Swift Jan!

What an awesome friend she has been to me, and how I miss her now that we've moved away. Many happy returns, my good friend, and all the very best for the birth of your third lovely baby tomorrow!

Everybody Loves Toilet Paper

Nat: Mum! Anna wasted the toilet paper! She's put it all over the toilet!

Me: Oh no, Did you waste the paper Anna?

Anna (thinking quickly, then grinning): And we wahfed (laughed) !!

Only in a little boy's bedroom ...

... would you find a piece of toilet paper taped to the wall.
Your turn!

What has your little boy left in / done to his bedroom?

Or little girl?

Or husband?

Or dog/cat/goldfish?

Milestones

Some milestones along the way, easing my post-caesarean body and psyche ever closer towards normality:


- getting out of bed the next morning

- showering and going to the loo without the 'assistance' they said one would need

- getting back into normal clothes and shoes

- going home, having walked from Maternity to the carpark without keeling over

- doing small things around the house, sometimes so small as to render no actual assistance with the actual running of the house, but important for one's sense of worth

- driving, which you're not actually not allowed to do for the dreaded six weeks after all!

- getting some groceries

- dropping a four year old off at kindy, then doing it with a newborn and a two year old. And surviving.

- watering one's garden again

- disciplining one's kids again

- getting back into Normal Undies! ...instead of the giant super-high-waisted post-caesar granny pants, which, I'm embarrassed to admit, were super-comfy with the waistband well away from the yowchy part but super-uncomfy with corresponding lack of fabric down lower. Let's just say it's a good thing that in this case, retrieving lost fabric does not incur a deduction of 0.5 of a point.


Wow! When it's all written out like that, it sounds like I'm powering around changing the world and overdoing things in general. I'm not. I'm taking things extremely easy and enjoying seeing a milestone like watering the garden happen when it does.

Each day I only have one or two goals. For example, my goals for a day might be: (1) get Nat to kindy, and (2) get Nat home from kindy.

This is why some nights, dinner doesn't exactly ... exist.

It's not just me though. I was relieved to hear a fellow kindy mum say that one night when her baby was small, she called her husband and demanded, "Ask me what's for dinner!"

When he hesitatingly asked, "What's for dinner?" she snapped, "A CARROT!" and hung up.

I loved that story, and I really appreciated that she told me about it. Because it reminds me of me.

Conversations

Anna-Lucia: At Gamma house I wots Woss 'n' Gommit (At Grandma's house I watched Wallace and Grommit.)
Me: Oh did you sweetheart?
Anna-Lucia: At Gamma house I wots Woss 'n' Gommit.
Me: Really? Was it good?
Anna-Lucia: At Gamma house I wots Woss 'n' Gommit.
Me: Oh yes?
Anna-Lucia: At Gamma house I wots Woss 'n' Gommit.
Me: I see what you're doing. I'm not playing this game.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Nat: Mum!
Me: Yes?
Nat: Mum!
Me: Yes?
Nat: MUM!
Me: Yes, Nat!
Nat: MUM-MEEE!
Me: Nat, I hear you. Speak now. What do you want to tell me?
Nat: Mum!
Me: Nope. Not answering that. This Information Booth is closed for the day.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Anna-Lucia (peering into the rubbish bin): What's that?
Me: I don't know sweetheart.
Anna-Lucia: What's that?
Me: I said I don't know.
Anna-Lucia: What's that Mummy?
Me: Anna, listen: I don't know what you're talking about.
Anna-Lucia: What's that Mummy?
Me: Look at my eyes. I can't see the thing you're talking about and I'm feeding Joseph, so I can't come over there and check it out.
Anna-Lucia (pause): Oh. Maybe Gogg Poo.
Me: (Got up to check it out.)

Deep Thoughts on Shallow Topics

Do you read NieNie (Stephanie Nielson)? I started reading her blog the day after she and her Mr Nielson suffered that horrible plane crash that killed their friend a year ago.

The first post I read was the one where her sister C-jane posted quickly to say that the crash had occurred and to ask for prayers.

I then read the previous post. How bizarre. Just a few short hours ago she had been safe and well, asking for people to consider advertising on her blog. What a lovely photo of her and her son Oliver. What had happened to her since then, I wondered.

Over the last twelve months, many of which were spent wondering when Nie would come out of the coma and if she was okay, I read most of her previous posts. I learned a lot about Nie. She and I are very different in some aspects, as she comes from a Mormon background and I am a Christian. But I still marvelled at the depth of her faith, I enjoyed reading about her family and how she loves being a wife and mother, and in general enjoyed peering through this bloggy window into her life.

How exciting was it to finally hear from her - out of the coma, back home and blogging again! How sad to hear of her struggles with her rehabilitation and self-image, including this heart-wrenching post about when her baby boy didn't recognise her, as her appearance is now very different.

Although our faith backgrounds are so different, I have been praying for her. I've never met her, never emailed her and never commented (as she does not haave the comments open on her blog), but I feel I know her in some small way. My heart aches for her, and I feel that there's nothing else I can do except talk to God on her behalf.

Now here is what's on my mind right now.

A short while ago, she posted this on her blog. Check out this link. Read her words. Look at that gorgeous picture of her and admit - she is a lovely person inside and out.

16th August was the anniversary of the plane crash. After a year of posting photos of everyone and everything else in the world, she finally posted a photo of her new self. You'll need to follow that link too.

Do you feel what I feel as you see the difference?

Okay, so the new Nie is beautiful inside and out as well, but the outer beauty is dramatically altered and bears the signs of her year's struggle with horrible burns and the many surgeries she has had. The most important thing is that she and her Mr Nielson are alive. And all this is just about appearance, right? ... Right?

But seriously? I can't believe what a hard road dear Nie is walking.

For us women, our appearance is very special. It's part of our identities. Is it any wonder that Nie has struggled with the change in her appearance? With the way that this change affected her youngest child so deeply in the days when he didn't recognise her?

In Nie's situation, I would struggle so deeply. You know I would. I'd fall apart. I shouldn't, but I would.

So today, after reading her blog post last night and seeing the photo of her new self, I have Deep Thoughts. Deep Thoughts on the Shallow Topic of appearance, what it means to me, and whether it really should mean all that to me. And I'm tying myself up in knots.