a blog you can use

I've gone from vorocious reader to being a dolt who takes forfuckingever to read one freakin' book, but I'm still going to visit The Restricted Section to see what I should be reading, even if I ain't.

e-mail of the day

Hi,

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If you could tell as many people as you can about our website, that would be a great help.

Thanks for your support and remember to sign the petition.

a small but interesting turn of events

After galivanting about in what must have been the thunderstorm of the year, I returned home to find two big bunches of flowers on my doorstep. The storm is an irrelevant detail to this brief update by the way, but put it this way, if Chicken Little had stopped by to declare the sky was falling, I'd sure as shit have believed that little fucker myself.

Anyhoo, flowers, two bunches, on my doorstep, big ones. See?

exhibit A

exhibit B

Frooking gorgeous, and if you look really closely at exhibit B, you'll see a patch of blue which is in fact, a really soft and squishy, child friendly teddy bear. Aww.

Exhibit A was a gift from my nanna (thankyou nan!), and exhibit B was from....wait for it....(are your breathes bated?)....(whatever 'bated" means)....The Inappropriate Sperm Donor, and exhibit B, if you were taking notes, was the bunch with the teddy bear attached.

His card was written in his handwriting which, hello! He didn't just order these over the phone (am I reading too much into that detail?) and had a post script that literally read: PS congratulations on the birth of Daniel.

"PS"?

Uh, okay.

Also, this is the first birthday since I've known him that he's a) remembered and b) not ruined.

How about them apples, eh?

it's all about me!

My Johari Window

My Nohari Window

alternative title: Do me, do me hard.

Bwah!

(God I'm crude*)




*which is probably an option on at least one of those windows.

it works for us

Over on Rancid Raves today, Cagey wrote about co-sleeping, and that's what I was thinking about today too, then I got distracted by Daniel's smiles and couldn't decide on a neat enough segue to include some crap about his sleeping habits in my last entry. Also, I am lazy.

*****

Daniel sleeps with me. He has since we were in hospital as he'd just been born and it made sense to keep him with me. While he'd have no doubt quickly learned to lie peacefully in his crib beside my bed, I wasn't ready to give him up when he'd just spent the last nine months so incredibly close to me. I certainly didn't judge the other new mothers in the ward, but I did wonder how they were able to separate from their babies with the cut of the umbilical cord, when I could not.

When he naps in the day, he sleeps wrapped in electrical cabling next to my bed, and at night, he starts out there until I come to bed. When I do, I clatter about, putting on lights and noisily turning the pages of my book until he wakes up. Then, with his first squawk of consciousness, I call him a poor thing for not being able to sleep on his own (*ahem*) as I bodily pluck him out of his bed and plonk him firmly into mine. The next eight hours are the absolute best of the day. Daniel sleeps by my side, and when he wakes for a feed, he does so either draped over my chest or tucked in the crook of my arm. We wake and sleep together for the most part, but peacefully, both of us stiring awake as the need arises. At other times though, I'll wake briefly to find him already awake, amusing himself as his legs kick and his arms punch the air. Those times, he doesn't need me as I'm already there, so I go back to sleep and our quiet night continues until he settles himself and joins me in dreamland. I worry about this not being A Good Thing at the same time that I know it is because, left alone, no baby could go for that amount of time without crying for attention.

Despite all this, I'm not all about attachment parenting (though honestly, I'm not really sure of the extent of what that means, so I probably shouldn't deny it with such certainty) I just like holding my son. I pick him up when he cries because I'd much prefer he cries to leave my arms, than to cry because he's not in them. In some ways, or from some perspectives maybe, my life is more, what is it? Complicated? Complex? because of simple differences resulting from my style of care. For example, Daniel is a bit of a loaded gun with the stroller as when we go out, I prefer to use a sling, and now, so does he, but because I'm used to this dependency, it isn't harder to tend to Daniel than it is to tend to a child used to his stroller, it's just different. Daniel doesn't cry much, maybe because he has been held so has no need to cry to be held, or maybe because he's just one of those babies who wouldn't cry much anyway. Whatever the reason, he's happy, and so am I.

The transition from singledom to motherhood has been one of the easiest of my life, and being a mother, is easier still. It's so easy that, after all the doomsday prophecies from virtually every already-parent around me while I was pregnant, I keep thinking I must be doing something wrong. The happy boy I'm raising though, with the chubby cheeks and the dimpled thighs tell me I'm doing things right enough for him to be absolutely thriving. I'm doing things right for us. This new job suits me, and the way I work at it suits my son.

And this is for the next wave of doomsdayers who tell me to wait! it gets harder! You're right, it will and I'll probably have to eat my words in the coming days, weeks or months, as Daniel grows and his needs change and I find out I've got nothing, nothing for this growing boy who needs more than a hug to make his day.

say cheese

When Daniel smiles, his lips crinkle at the edges and his little face creases up and it's the best thing ever - and then he powers it up a zillion percent and...imagine you're watching fireworks go off and there's this explosion lighting up the sky, and it's suddenly eclipsed by an even bigger, better and more spectacular display that in no way takes the shine off its predescessor...that's his smiles. He has this first one that is SO enough, but it's invariably a warm up for a second one that lights up the world. Okay, my world, but it's pretty spectacular, regardless of the radius of its WOW! factor.

Smiles however, are becoming increasingly difficult to capture because the deebster has worked out that mummy + camera = spots in front of his eyes, so now when I produce the Ricoh, he produces The Frown. It's as adorable as The Smile, but too many of the former could suggest to the internet that there is a deficit in my mad mothering skilz. So to escape such public scrutiny, I changed my camera angle.

watching Las Vegas, which the boy is so into, probably because of all the boobs

The Ears my friends, are as endearing as a The Smile, and the back of that head is entirely kissable. In fact, I kiss it so much and with so much force that he's in danger of losing his brain through the vacuum created by my mouth on his fuzzy little cranium.

in which I am amazed

Daniel and I were at our New Parents' Group yesterday and Daniel was chipper in his clean absorbent undergarments, while I was coolly confident in the abiltity of those undergarments to remain clean for more than a nanosecond.

Following an abrupt and spectacular rumble from his business end, I braced myself and took a peek down the back of his pants.

Jesus.

He's such a little boy. How did he once contain so much poop?

an observation

One of the more interesting consequences of owning pornstar tits is that when the deebs pukes down my front, it's caught by my (spectacular) cleavage and makes puddles in my bra.

and fyi: Daniel's head is now bigger than my boobs, which are now roughly the size (and consistency) of bowling balls. Thankyou.

I've got nothing folks

Mum arrived for another visit yesterday, and....wait! I've already been sidetracked.

I'll set the scene here at the Villa d'aibee: Daniel is lying on his colourful playmat thingy that has lights, twirls a little mobile above his head and plays music. In short, it requires no effort on his behalf to have the living shit amused out of him. His mother, aibee, ponders on the idea that while he loves that fucker, her son is lying there like slug, and is that really a good thing? So she picks him up and puts him on the floor and loads him up with some wrist rattles, strategically places a bunny rattle on his chest (soft, fluffy and it's not going to crush him like a bug or anything), and then positions Mr Bunny (seems we have quite the cottontail theme going on here) at his shoulder to oversee operations because seriously, there's nothing like a virtual soft and fluffy explosion when it comes to babies. Daniel is now perplexed because fuckit, these things don't do anything. Seems he hasn't yet worked out that he has to do more than lie like a rug for this array of toys to be FUN!!

The look on his face? Priceless and yet, more than a little pissy as his ma...

An additional digression: five minutes on and the deebs is going off. Also, his eyes have been clamped on me this whole time. Hello Daniel! (which makes him puke)...now he's kicking his little fat feet and waving his berattled arms around....now he's squeaking! And enough with the running commentary already!

So anyway and in short, mum's here and that explains my Bunny In The Headlights stare.

In other news, my kid has nicknames. Lots of them. There's the standards you see here, and there's a fucking shitload more that change each time I open my big ol' piehole. Worthy of mention is the one I just called my kid. "Pants Macmanus".

Pants Macmanus?

What the hooey does that even mean?

...and now he's squealing, and the we've got to go to the post office which closes soon because my mailman is a fucking moron, so with a complete lack of flourish and nary a punchline, the end.

While he was sleeping

the deebs, two months old today.

stuff and other stuff

Daniel's arrival has shown me an emotion exists that I didn't know existed before. It's not love, or at least, it's not what I thought love was. What I feel for him is...everything. I feel everything for him, and while that explains very little about how I feel for this little guy, it's the closest thing to an explanation I can think of. It's so intense, it hurts, and as much as I've loved before, and as much as I thought it was everything, it wasn't. It was either nothing in comparison to how my feelings for my son. or it was something else entirely, which means that what I thought was love, wasn't. I'd die for Daniel tomorrow. It's that simple. If I was asked to choose between my life or the life of any of the men I thought I loved...err, him. Duh. It always would have been. (and for anyone who'd literally (as there are shitloads of women who figuratively give up their lives for the men in their lives, but that's another entry entirely)(and probably not one written by me)(once maybe, but now my brain was taken over by hormones and an obsessive interest in my child) give up their lives for the Love Of Their Life *doof* <- that's a slap upside of the head. It's for you. Use it wisely and maybe try growing a brain. Thankyou ) I understand now too, why new parents can go on and on and on about their baby. Unfortunately I understand only too well that our obsession with the aforementioned baby bores the living shit out of the childless among us, so I feel guilty and incredibly boring everytime I open my mouth, because when I do, as much as I try to be all cool and exude an air of What Baby? I begin babbling about Daniel. Forgive me for I try to be interesting and nonchalant, I really do. All I think about, all I can think about, is him though. Hell, I'll be on the phone trying to gossip about a mutual friend or something, and the baby will do something that's in reality, probaby quite mundane but which, to me, is AMAZING, so suddenly I realise I've just rambled on AGAIN about The Baby - and I didn't even know I was doing it. Arrgh. Really and truly, it's out before I know it. I only realise I've done it after the event. I'm becoming a hermit because, like the tree falling in a forest with nobody hearing it, if nobody is bored to fucking tears by me raving about this kid, am I really boring? But I digress. The reason why new parents go on and on is because, if the rest of them are anything like me, nothing else matters, and all the blabbering on and showing of ridiculous amounts of photos happens without our permission. Our brains simply will not allow any other data in or out. It's our babies or it's nothing. Our babies might not be the brightest, most beautiful, most lovable babies in the world, but in our world, they are.

Which reminds me, you know that a large chunk of my time in therapy has been devoted to this expectation of perfection I grew up with? That I feel like if I'm not perfect, I've failed? Yeah well, my poor kid is going to be in therapy because he'll be all fucked up because I want him to know that mediocre is fine. He'll be all "my mother never encouraged me, waah" and I'll be all banging my head against wall and feeling like I failed. Again. Oy.

Which reminds me again, expecting perfection is all about expecting to fail, because perfection doesn't exist, now take two aspirin and call me in the morning. That'll be twenty bucks. Also, if I know that, why the hell am I still seeing a psychiatrist?

Now, back to this new parent compulsive thing: while I'm alienating anyone I know who hasn't bred, and so, removing myself rrom their world, not because I don't want to know them anymore, but because I don't want to bore them stupid any more than I have to, I feel like I've been given access to another world, one that runs parallel to this one. One that, while I was told it existed, didn't actually exist until I had the secret key in my possession. One that glitters even. The key is Daniel and that world is Motherhood. With a capital M.

Mothers, it would appear, stick together like shit sticks to a blanket. Mothers also allow other mothers to go nuts with the kid stories, even if we don't actually listen to each others' (or maybe because we don't?), so while this alienation thing is going on, I'm noticing and being noticed by a different group of people entirely. There's a sense of kinship between us, even if we're strangers to each other. I can't talk for the rest of then, but I'd hazard a guess and say that most feel as I do, that we can look at each other and without talking, know we have this everything in common. I'd say that none of us mean to be exclusionary, that's why we try and include you in this wonderful world we've found, and that's why we'll inevitably bore you to fucking tears. We want so much for you to experience what we're experiencing, because it's so amazing, that we forget that we needed the key before we could experience it.

Sorry about that.

click me!

ha ha HA!

Daniel, taking life seriously

a man and his hose

Mr Deebs contemplates the ramifications of Colonel Sanders getting wind of those thighs...

oh, bla, etc.

Rather than struggle with the damn stroller every time I venture out with the boy - although I've got to admit, I'm quite the stroller expert by now. One flick of the hand and *poof* the whole thing unfurls itself like magic. I'm still working on the magic folderuppering (whatever) because I still look like an amateur in that depatment, not because I am, mind, but because it's a fucking awkward thing to fold up. I mean, seriously, a hand button, a thumb button and a foot pedal all at once and at the same time as you fold the top bit over the front bit? Somebody in the design department was on drugs that day.

That design feature aside, this is an awesome stroller, mostly because it was a totally awesome bargain. I'd bought a stroller from Target earlier this year, when I was around five minutes pregnant and because I was an amateur at that point, and it was half price, I believe, and I'm a sucker for a bargain and will buy shit I don't even need if it has a "SALE!" tag on it that suggests I should. Certainly, I'll um and ahh about it for a fucking eon as I'm the most indecisive biznitch you've ever met, but ultimately, I end up buying the damn thing, as long as I know I can return it when I come to my senses once I'm home, which is when I generally realise I have no use for whatever amazing bargain I just bought. Come to think if it, the indecisiveness got worse while I was pregnant, and while the wavering is even more laborious now as I generally floof around for AGES debating the purchase, only to go home empty handed and with nothing to show for my pained efforts. From there, I move onto wallowing in regret at letting such an amazing deal slip through my fingers, but that's another story. Oh, I love shopping

Where was I?

I'd bought stroller V.1 when I had no fucking idea about strollers, and I ultimately decided I hated it five months after the initial purchase. It has plastic tyres for crying out loud. Plastic. Ick, but it was still in its carton, I had the receipt, and fortunately I have Oscar winning potential. I got my cash refund on the icky plastic tyred thing, when usually after that amount of time has lapsed between purchase and return, it's only a store credit. Go me. Upshot of this being that by eight or so months pregnant, despite my burning desire to own one, my more brightly burning indecisive streak meant I still didn't have a stroller. Then the day before Daniel was born, I had an hour to kill so I futzed around in the babyTarget section so I could drive myself nuts over all the things I should be buying but wouldn't anyway because of the aforementioned indecisive bent. Things never go to plan though, and there was this killer red stroller on the floor at more than sevety five percent off, so *BAM* I was so there with my credit card, and now we have a stroller that cost a ton less than the other piece of crap and yet, shits all over it, the end, because fuck! Where was I going with all this?!

Most often, we travel without the shit hot stroller because we use a Hotsling. It's so easy to use and I've become so adept at stuffing him into it that I've graduated from gently coaxing him into his sling while I'm seated on the ground, surrounded by soft anf floofy pillows and several firemen in full rescue gear, to shoving him in it while standing over a pit of sharp knives and broken glass.

The deebs loves it as it puts him in the exact same position he was in in (in in?) utero, and I love it as, being a personal trainer and Bowen Therapist, I'm totally anal about back health. Using this sling automatically engages the muscles that got stretched to buggery while I was pregnant, therefore my core strength is being improved simply by carrying the little prince around. His weight is distributed across my shoulders so doesn't put any strain on my lower back AND it was way cheaper than the other popular carriers on the market which, in my professional opinion (BWAH!), suck. Babies spines go in a "C" curve, and a slings like this encourage this natural posture.

Also and most importantly, Daniel looks SO FREAKIN' CUTE when he's in it that the world stands still and no kidding, I'm going to have to start charging a viewing fee because so many people stop us to say 'aww'.

Also, I go back to work tomorrow.

EEK.

Also, you have no idea how long it took me to write this amount of crap. Whoo.