balls

News just in:

Stuttgart. Tuesday, 27th June, 2006.

An Australian man has been arrested in Stuttgart after assaulting an Italian supporter following the Italy / Australia knock-out match on Monday.

The man was said to be 20 metres away from his victim who sustained head fractures, several broken ribs, a punctured lung, two broken legs, severe lacerations and burns to 75% of his body.

The Australian man was shot dead by Authourities and the Italian victim is expected to make a full recovery in a couple of minutes.

Bwah!

*ahem*

As an Italian-Australian, the lead up to the game on Monday night presented a moral quandary that beat the shit out of that in Sophie's choice. Choose your favorite child? Sure! I had to choose my favorite country, fercrisake. An entire nation, and I had to do this because god knows, that nation winning or losing depended on how loud I could shout my support from the sidelines. Or from the comfort of my sofa over here on the other side of the world. Whatever, but anyway, the point is, it was tough. TOUGH! So I decided to fuck this team spirit bullshit and think less globally because that way, no matter who won, I won, and my quality of life is totally dependant on some anonymous guys with pretty hair winning a game that involves running around after each other under the guise chasing a piece a ball in what amounts to a really, really big backyard winning, I needed to win.

In case you missed it, I just made reference to my belief that all men are latent homosexuals, and that one need only look at ball (ball! hehe) sports if they have any doubts that what I say is true.

So anyway, whoever won didn't matter to me, because either way I couldn't lose.

Fuck a duck though man, the way that match ended, both teams were robbed of their chance at an honest win. And that's my contraversial statement for the day. Point being, I lost, and the World Cup is so obviously all about me. Yeah.

But!

On a personal level, there was a very silver lining, despite losing a match that had appeared to be a guaranteed win for this Australitalian bee

At around about 12.30am, I got a message on my phone, and when I opened it, it was from my brother, asking me if I was watching THE game. I wasn't, because I was watching the final episodes of season two's OC, which O. My. God! so kind of forgot that THE game was about to start. So I promptly changed stations and sent back a text message saying well, duh, of course I am. Then we had a little text message exchange about this and that, which on any other day with any other person I would've hated to do because, no thankyou, I'd rather not, but on this occasion it absolutely thrilled me to bits because my brother and I have barely spoken in almost twenty years, so I'm not going to quibble about how he approached me, I'm just going to be ridiculously happy that he did.

insert your own title here

In re my incoherent ramblings from a week or so ago: the boy popped a tooth that very morning. Actually, given the state of poppedness when I finally found it, the mystery of the boy's recent uncharacteristic bearheadedness was sure as shit solved.

We'd been interviewing with the director of the childcare centre Daniel is to spend three days a week at, and whose story I have yet to elaborate on, when dude (and by 'dude' I mean Daniel, not the director) grabbed my finger and shoved it into his mouth, which is something he does with a great deal of drippy regularity anyway, but that particular day I finally bought a damn clue. Waddya know? A tooth. Then he promptly settled back into being napping champion and angels sang, harpsichords played and the world stopped spinning off its axis. Which kind of led to a redundant day on the following Wednesday.

We'd enrolled in that Day Service stuff to get help with Daniel's nap times, and rather than give us soemthing to work with, he set about executing text book sleeping patterns. I'd hoped to also get some help with his napping when we weren't at home because in that arena, we're still screwed. Always ahve been actuallay, so if I want my little cherub to be all rosy cheeked and topped up on his zzzzs, I can never, ever leave the house. Ever. The Day Service advisor was about as useful as tits on a bull though, telling me to just go out anyway. Marvelous.

After about ten days' amnesty, Daniel began being a leetle difficult again, but having learned my lesson the last time though, I know it's teething and not him generally being a shithead. Still, when it's the wee hours of the morning and he's bouncing around like a deranged lunatic after having had no naps all day, it's hard to not want to tell him to shut the fuck up and go to sleep. It's harder still dealing with those impatient feelings though. After all, he's my little boy and he's not sleeping because he's in pain, and aargh, no good mother would ever thing those thoughts, etc so mostly, it's hard to not know what to do to make the pain go away.

Daniel had some baby paracetamol last night to help him through, and anyone who knows me also knows that I have a major medication phobia. Or did have. I'm much better now than I was, as evidenced by my ability to knock back the codeines after Daniel's birth. Still, I'd rather cast a spell and dance naked under the moonlight to cure what ails me than submit my body to an aspirin. Not really, but you get my point. Anyway, after pouring a minute amount of the evil drug down Daniel's throat, I realised I have what amounts to med phobia transference as I spent the rest of the night worrying about the liver failure he was sure to get from the 1.2 mls he'd ingested. If by 'ingested' I mean 'thrown up'. Lord, we went through three sets of pyjamas for him and two tee shirts and a pair of track pants for me by the time he was done. Next time, to avoid ome of the worst case of the yarps the kid has ever seen (worn, whatever), I'm just gonna stick with rubbing high grade cocaine on those virgin gums of his.

Moving right along, Daniel had his second swimming lesson and his third time in the pool the other day. He's been pretty good about the lessons so far, and hasn't obviously hated them, being dunked unceremoniously regularly throughout the time spent in the pool. I expected him to remain ambivilent for a little while longer though as to date, he's neither obviously hated or enjoyed the experience, rather, he's bobbed around and not become too inolved with what's been going on around him. Come Saturday, well. Daniel went nuts as soon as we got there, and started kicking his little legs in excitement as soon as he saw the other little kids already in the pool. By the time it was our turn to get in, he'd already endeared everyone to him with his obvious joy, and he spent the entire lesson smiling and squealing and watching all the pool action going down, with his big eyes practically on stalks taking it all in. He had an absolute ball, and because he did, I did too. Swimming lessons though, are the toughest thing about sole parenting because getting us both out the pool, dried and dressed without dropping either one of us on our heads is challening, to say the least, and would probably make a great submission to Australia's Funniest Home Videos.

For those of you who were interested, the pumpkin adventure went off without a hitch. I sat in the floor and Daniel was propped up on my knee, and I flew the plane into the hangar efficiently enough so that we both didn't end up wearing the lot. Woot.

And one of these days I'll get around to explaining why the Deebs is going into day care. It's not that exciting. Then again it kind of is, but it isn't, if you get what I mean. Yeah.

roll your own

when do babies begin to crawl? At seven or eight months old? Nine months? I don't know. My intrepid six month old isn't crawling yet, but he is covering a lot of space. Not long after he learned to roll from his front to his back, Daniel worked out that if he combined this new skill with his well practiced back to front manouvre, he could freak the living shit out of his mother by disappearing when she left him unsupervised for a nanosecond. I found him again, but not before a chilling 'What the fuck??!" coursed through my veins upon viewing the empty room that once contained my child. Dude's feet were poking out from under the sofa, and when I dragged him out, he was still clutching the toy he'd been chewing on when he was still flat on his back in the middle of the room. He's since disappeared several thousand times more, usually with a toy as an accomplice, and I've since sported the wild eyed look of a frantic mother at least that many times too. I thought I'd have a few more months of living with what amounted to, well, a log, basically. Something that stays put, you know? But I've got this intrepid little traveller with an amazing sense of direction. The kid doesn't just randomly roll and end up where fate takes him. No, he determines his own path, one that usually takes him to places I would never have guessed could house a child until his little socked feet sticking out tell me otherwise. So yea, he rolls. Everywhere. He's also become my yardstick for 'How much do I need to sweep the floor?'. Fortunely my carpet was ripped up last year and replaced with some very pedestrain, but way more hygenic, beige linoleum, so there's no daily struggle with dragging the stupid vacuum cleaner out of its very stupid and inconvenient storage area. The beige linoleum though, is the same colour as whatever the boy yarps up. The other night, I picked him up and put him in the hug-a-bub so we could wallk across the road to the video store. The tell tale smell wafting up from the boy's head, inches from my own nose, let me know that he had indeed, yarped, and that he had indeed, wiped it up with his hair. Peeyew. It was late, the store was beckoning, so I wiped off the lumps, dusted his head with lavender scented cornstarch, and popped a hat over the lot.

Ah yes, mothering at its finest.

Speaking of video stores, why do we stil call 'em video stores despite their trade these days being primarily DVD rentals?

Speaking of my video store, the second season OC DVDs came in the other day. I've been waiting for over six weeks for them. Actually, the store got a new set in because the ones that I'd been waiting all that time for still haven't been returned. Six weeks, man. I hate humans, I really do, which is a bit harsh considering it's only a DVD. Or six. But it's the principle of the thing, you know? This nimrod had been called several time a week (the people at the video store adore me, hence the barrage of phone calls to get me my damn OC fix) and been told, either directly or via an answering service that someone (me!) was waiting for the DVDs, so could they please bring the fucking things back. Christ. The moron still has them, by the way, and I just love that she's being charged $1.10 per DVD, per day. With six DVDs in the set, and with five and a half weeks of late fees owing, my pissiness at being made to wait that long has been tempered somewhat with knowing that shitfeatures' details have already gone to the debt collectors. Yeah! Three cheers for the second mortgage she's going to have to take out to pay for my long, drawn out wait!!

And he's awake now so there's yer update. Just quickly though - solids! Daniel is about to try some pumpkin (organic, steamed over pure water by my own delicate hand) for the very first time. We have no high chair, nor do we have any of those all encompassing quarantine suits that the people who clean up crime scenes wear, so wish us (and the beige lino) luck.

christ on a cracker

Lookit the damn time. It's 4.30 in the morning and this is not the first time, nor is it the second third or fourth time for that matter, that the freeloader has woken me up with a whole boatload of fussing. I went to bed at 1.30. I've been up since 4. The same thing happened last night, and the night before, and it's been happening on and off since the torment of the non existent nap. Fuck me a fucking duck.

Fuck.

I don't fucking get it.

Also, my guess is that there's gonna be a lot of the f bomb in this entry because fuck man, this is a fucking joke.

There's nothing wrong with him when he wakes up. He's doesn't cry or anything, rather he starts to kick and wriggle and generally have himself a merry old time, so I've been changing his underpants, wrapping him up and tossing him back into his own bed, and because that isn't enough to curb his nocturnal urge to play, I've also had to drag him out of my room and into what will one day be his, kicking aside the pile of crap that is lying around in there to make room for him in order to do so. Usually he shuts the fuck right back up, and we both go back to sleep.

Of course, I hate that he's not with me, but figure he's flexing his need for some space.

Tonight though, or should I say, this very fucking early morning, he's taking his sweet time about this getting back to sleep gig. apparently he's a little pissy that I ruined his party and now he's grizzling. I'm pretty fucking grizzly myself so nope, I'm not about to go in there and do the whole shush/pat routine because a) we haven't needed that these past couple of days and shushing and patting could quite possibly be, in his fuzzy little head, a reward for waking mummy up in the wee fucking hours, and b) because right now, I'm not feeling particularly gracious and I think I'd prefer to eat worms.

I don't know what to do. I don't agree with sending little babies far away to sleep on their own. It might work well for other people - and more power to them - but it just doesn't sit right with me. It's not like I've made him dependant on me to get any sleep at all, which is another reason why it's a big old negative on the option to shush and pat, as he has his naps (which have been passable these last few days. Not stellar, but not a scene from The Exorcist either) in his bed, which is conveniently located on the floor next to my own, and at night time, after he goes off to sleep on his own, I can pick him up and tuck him into bed with me onoce he wakes, with the minimum of fuss and a big giant raspberry to anyone who says that babies should be sleeping in their own bed, in a room down the end of the hall, and as far away from mummy as possible.

Dude needs to go read himself some Dr Sears because this separation shit we've got going on is NOT sitting right with his ma.

The doctor had a look at him last week, and determined that there was no medical reason for the nap crisis we were loving these past couple of weeks. This is one healthy, happy kid, so I'm gonna translate that no medical reason for him putting a big, giant cross through the nap option on his daily timetable, to his night time habits and say that this waking up crap isn't worrying. It's annoying.

So yeah, I'm just gonna sit here and listen to him bitch some more.

Joy.

the inane ramblings of an overtired mind

Also, paretheses!

Do little itty babies really react to what's going on in their mothers' itty bitty minds? Because S (going with anonymous type initials rather than identifying type names from hereon in) and I got into it last night, which is actually code for I've fucking had it with him. I've been reasonable these past several weeks because he's my son's father and I just don't have the energy to be all grumpy and resentful when we've got to a lifetime to enjoy (!) together.

As you know, we've been talking since he, in his version, decided to take responsiblity for his actions (ahem). Of course, my version is that he only called because he received a letter from the Child Support Agency's legal department stating that he'd be taken to court if he didn't pull his head from his arse and stop being such a flake, but potayto/potarto, you know? Anyway, we were talking last week as I had to follow up with him because he was taking his sweet ol' time getting his post DNA test, statutory declaration back to the lawyer and obviously needed my gentle encouragment to get the damn job done, and toward the end of the conversation he asked my advice on how to tell his eleven year old daughter, T, that she has a brother. As an aside, his super-nifty idea was to invite Daniel and I over one weekend when she was with him, and to tell her, kind of like a show and tell at school, al la "This woman? My ex. This child? Your brother". Brilliant plan, yes? I especially adored the bit where, when she meets us and goes over all ga-ga about the cute baby, her father says to her "Do you like him? Do you really like him? That's good because guess what?! He's your brother! Wee!". I could practically hear the poor kid's head explode already, but rather than calling him a fucking idiot ("Are you off your face?! Oh that's right, the qustion is actually are you ever not."), I suggested that there might be potential drawbacks to this cunningly crafted plan. He was all "she'll be fine, she likes babies". Good grief. Although....am I the only one who thinks that this is the most ridiculous plan in the world? Or do I have to go eat some worms because I'm wrong and he's *gulp* right? As another aside, does anyone else think it's weird that, after this past year, he's asking for my help on how to run his damn life?

Anyway, having never nutted out the solution to the complex daughter problem, S asked if he could call over the weekend to discuss it some more, and I said yes. Then he sent me a text message at 10pm last night, saying some shit about being too busy to call because he was going to watch soccer with the boys (wog code for grown up male friends)(we're Italian-Australian, aka wogs)(Skips can't call us wogs without getting their heads kicked in)('Skips' being code for Australians)(as in Skippy The Bush Kangaroo) but would call around midnight instead. I was just about to text him back (aside, I hate hate hate stupid text message conversations, because fucking call me you tight arsed bastard, but when in Rome, etc) to say not to bother because, fer real - and by the way, when you want to see Daniel, you'll need put in a contact order with the Family Court because I am just about done with your bullshit.

Bit of background, one of the more annoying things about our relationship was his penchant for doing the exact same thing he did last night, so I'll be fucked if I'm gonna stand back and put up with it now.

I didn't text him, thinking instead that I'd explain when he called that there are consequences to his actions, and this was one of them because apparently he's five years old and I'm apparently his mother. Eww. Anyway, thus far and because I'm either an idiot or very reasonable, take your pick, he hasn't really had to endure any, despite fucking off when I was six weeks pregnant and reappearing only after a court ordered DNA test was threatened, but texting me in the exact same manner that boiled my beans for five years and acting like it was okay to continue to do whatever in hell he wants, was the final straw. I'm done with being reasonable, so I don't want to talk to him any more, not until he grows a friggin' brain and stops being such a dickhead. Or words to that effect.

Midnight came and went and still no phone call, so I called him. And called him, and called him again until he answered the stupid phone that he wasn't answering because he was out with the boys watching the stupid soccer, which was over anyway at that point. Then, with a calm that imnpressed even myelf, I explained all of the above. He was all "but, but...we need to talk" and I was all *yawn*. Then he said something about I'd realise we needed to once I lost my "attitude", and that's when my head exploded. My attitude? What the fuck?!

It's 6.30 in the morning now, and I've been up since 4 because the midget has been driving me nuts since around 1.30am. He's asleep now, but god knows how long that's gonna last for, probably until I'm ready to go back to bed, and I'm out here stewing on what a dolt his father is.

So yeah, the question was, do babies really tap into their mothers' brains? Because the little tyke hasn't been settled since I went to bed after that phone call last night, and in true vicious circle fashion, I'm not settled now because the little tyke has had me up every fucking hour since then, and he's not settled because I'm not settled, and I'm not settled because he's not settled and if I keep going on with this monotonous description, I may be lucky enough to bore myself to sleep in time for Daniel to wake up and make my friggin' day. Not that I've got a lot to do today. I'm getting my eyes checked this afternoon, woohoo, because giving birth apparently shot my eyes to shit, and it would be nice to not have eyes so red and veiny that I threaten to bleed to death every time I blink when the optician flips over those freaky lenses and asks me "is it better like this...or like this...?". I never know which one is, what with my short attention span and all, so I generally take a wild guess and hope for the best. And because I'm on a roll, giving birth seems to have also ruined my hearing as since the Deebs arrived, I've been tilting my head and asking "What's that you just said, dearie?" while sticking an earhorn into the appropriate orifice. Apparently I've lost my high(?) frequency range, so while I used to hear something like "Do you understand?" now I hear "o ou uneran?", and because brains are so good at doing what it takes to fill in the gaps, it no longer filters out the background noise. What happens is it turns up its volume up in an effort to locate the missing consonants, so not only am I OD'ing on vowel sounds, I'm also getting an earful of rumbles and murmurs. Aweseome. It'd be fascinating stuff, if it wasn't happening to my own damned head.

And if anyone tells me that age fucks up your senses more than dropping a cub does, I may cry. Boo hoo.

June 12! (!!)

(for those of you playing along at home, the title is a hint)

Anyhoo....

Daniel had his first dunk in a pool on Saturday, and I'm pleased to announce that "swimming lesson" didn't turn out to be a euphemism for "screaming lesson".

The boy was a champ, and sweet lord, he looked so adorable in his sporty little swimsuit. Unfortunately, there are no photos of the event, or of his adorable little tush in his colourful expandypants as the one downside of sole parenting is that there's rarely a spare person on hand when you need one.

It was a small class and we did things like sing songs, blow bubbles, and kick and pull through the water. The rest of the class were a tad older so they really went off while my little munchkin merely bobbed around like an unimpressed cork. He did crack a smile or two, though in retrospect, they were probably more because of the hugs I gave him than his delight in counting the ducks and penguins hanging overhead, and he did show a little emotion when he experienced that whole underwater, no oxygen thing. The main thing is that he didn't appear to hate it (unless his silence was actually a mute protest, particularly to the that weird exercise with the picture of a turtle glued into the bottom of that ice cream container because yeah, I didn't understand that one either, kid) which is a good thing as we're going back next week for some more. Now that we're enrolled and not just testing out the water, so to speak, with a free class, we're going into a different class, one with younger babies and a shallower, warmer pool. There'll still be that whole underwater jive though, poppet. Sorry about that.

As an aside, this is the same pool I learned to swim in. I was older than Daniel is now, and therefor more able to be scarred by the experience. Kids these days have mummy and daddy in the pool playing fun games and other innocuous shit, while I had mummy and daddy cheering from the sidelines while some mean prick threatened to bite my toes off unless I jumped in the pool. "C'mon! I'll catch you!". Yeah, right. Fucker. I jumped, he stepped aside, and I went under like a lead ballon. Then I worked some more on my fledgling trust issues. Christ.

*****

In other news, did anyone else notice the date?

Happy half birthday, Mr Deebs. You're the cheese on my Ritz cracker, the icing on my cake, the bubbles in my bathtub, I think you're really great. Woo!

the six month man

rivetting news

It's 9am and today's Battle O' Le Nap has already begun. That bullshit the other day about tossing the books and lo! lookit the boy going off to sleep with the shush/pat combo? Lasted two days so yeah, is bullshit. Whereas once the shushing and patting entertained him as he quietly refused to sleep, now they're accompanying him as he launches into a much more vocal opposition to my desire for him to trot merrily - and sleepily - down the path to the Land Of Nod. His determination to stay awake is impressive actually, rivalled only in magnitude by his vocal range and its related ability to shatter glass, so he's missed anything even closely resembling a nap for two days, three counting today, preferring instead to scream through any attempt tha's been made to lull him to sleep so he can pass out from exhaustion later, much later, in the afternoon.

I'm reporting from the front line kids,because as I type, we're five minutes into day three of this, my second attempt at screwing the boy up with his own abandonment issues.

We're supposed to be visiting a childcare centre this morning too, which is another story and one I should probably tell one of these days...and with now being as good a time as any, why not tell it now?

Daniel will be going into childcare for three half days each week.

There.

Now maybe I'll elaborate on it one of these days.

Anyway, we're viewing a centre today to assess its suitablity for my precious little boy, and to possibly enrol him, which is likely because a) spaces for little babies are as rare as hen's teeth, b) the only other two centres that have a place didn't impress me, and c) if phone conversations are anything to go by, this one has me wanting to move in there with him so they can take care of me too.

But we'll have to go another day because unlike the past two days, the controlled crying worked after ten minutes this morning, yay, and there's no way I'm waking the Kraken now in order to get there at 10.15. He's been pencilled into their manifesty type thing already anyway, so my decision is the only reason he'd miss this space. Oh the headiness of absooute power, etc.

Coincidently, and this carries no weight in my decision to go there or not, especially since my memories are less than stellar and more of that mean kid teasing me because he was The King Of The Castle and I wasn't, the fucker, I went there as a child too. My mum didn't appreciate the concept of stablity, so I was carted around to a bazillion different childcare centres when I was an wee young thing. I was the perpetual new girl, and while it wasn't full time care, the only memories I have of that age are of being at various centres and watching the other kids play. I remember nap times too, of lying in whatever little stretcher I ahd for the day, in a darkened room, clutching the pink teddy bear with the sewn on mouth that Father Christmas gave me at Dad's work's Christmas party, and of quietly crying for my mummy. So yeah, now I'm gonna give the same gift of lurve to my son. Rock.

In other news, my shower screen has been repaired, if by 'repaired', I mean 'sodomised'. The glass was cracked when I moved in, and last year I finally arranged for it to be replaced after another tradesman (who, as an aside and unlike the stream of morons before him who siliconed the tiles because yeah, that's really going to repair a leak behind the taps*, accurately located the problem in the plumbing in the freaking wall) informed me that a) it was dangerous and b) should have been repaired by my landlord tweny odd years ago when it happened. I was all over that so arranged for its repair last year, which went ahead this week.

Some really tall, nice guy came and took the damn thing out, and then a few days later some old, grumpy fuck came back and futzed around putting the stupid thing back in, before leaving with nary a hoot or a wave. He did such a good job that I had to call the company back to fix the results of what amounted to the shower screen equivilant of a fuck up the arse. Seriously, the screen was in upside down, the doors were off their tracks, and I was all wondering about the freakout I could have should those doors decide to jam. A shorter, grumpy old guy came back and told me that it owuld ahve been cheaper for my landlord to replace the damn thing with one that wasn't twenty million years old. This one had apparently died in the arse, and that while he'd put the damn doors on the stupid track, the broken little wheelie things meant they'd never run smoothly, but they can't be replaced because they're too fucking old. The upside down thing impressed him too, but there was nothing he could do to fix that because I don't know.

Next on the agenda, last Tuesday, my uncle and his new Ferrari: firstly, let it be known that I don't buy into that Day Of The Devil crap. secondly, my uncle totalled his two week old Ferrari with my mum in the passenger seat. They walked away from the wreck, nursing only a broken collar bone and ribs (him) and a sprained ankle (her). They're both okay, so we can all say 'Poo!' in the face of this supposed devil person (aka the figment in all good Christians' imaginations) The crash meant that she didn't arrive in town yesterday (a trip which she announced only the day before hand) which honestly? Was a gift from The Other Figment himself

Also, she turned 66 on the same day. Also also, my inner lapsed Catholic is going to burn in hell for pretty much all of that last paragraph.

my sanity speaks

We have a Child And Youth organisation thingy over there that helps out with issues like sleeping. There's also an associated parent help line which is available 24/7 for advice. Theirs was 'Oh no! Don't leave a crying baby alone!' which was kind of very unFerber like, and contradicted what I was following in the books. Hmm. In any case, I went to their drop-in centre on Thursday evening and am booked into something called a Day Service sometime in June, the 21st I think, so that Daniel and my routine can be observed and hints can be given to help get him to sleep and me off the sauce.

I've tossed the fucking books away too because honestly, this escalated from being an irritating penchant of Daniel's to not nap (despite being delirious with fatigue), to being a distressing exercise for both of us once I started doing What The Books Say. Daniel may have been displaying signs of separation anxiety, or been going through a developmental phase, (aka a Wonder Week) and if so on either count, I'd rather feel I helped him through it, rather than forced him into submission.

So we've been taking a gentler appoach, and if Daniel isn't learning how to put himself to sleep, I can learn to help him do it for a while yet. After all, the chances of him growing out of needing a pat on the tummy and a nice song while he's seventeen are very high. It's also okay to want to chuck him out the window, as long as I don't actually do it. I've got to stop being so hard on myself for simply feeling things, you know? Also, I could do a with a bit of restraint with the catastrophising too.

Some would say the Controlled Crying, Cry It Out gig didn't work because I didn't try hard enough, but two weeks of my baby getting more and more upset at the prospect of naptime was the failure, not my inability to follow through. In any case, I'm a lot more relaxed already, and Daniel napped like a champ yesterday morning too. Granted, he refused to go down in the afternoon, then missed out on anything more than an interrutpted snooze in his diamond encrusted car seat (the one that, for what I paid for it, should gently massage his precious self and do my housework) until he went passed out cold while nursing at 9.30pm (which the books say is a Bad Thing, and my reply to them is a big old raspberry)

part deux

Yesterday was better. He napped twice, and then when he looked tired later in the day, I stuffed him into his hug-a-bub and took him to the store where he caught a few zeds on the fly. Then to turn things upside down, he was a bear to put to sleep at night. Probably because he was overtired from the nap-on-the-run. Still, the other naps weren't fucking hell, though I did the patting/shushing routine again because I can't handle the screaming. Thing is, the patting/shushing is so boring and I'm always scared the patting is gonna turn into a wallop because as I pat, he fusses and that fussing irritates me so much, which is why I want another solution. One that removes me from the situation and keeps my baby safe. Then again, I also want a solution that doesn't leave him alone and lonely and leave me feeling like shit. :( It's not even like the pat/shush routine goes on forever either, it's that I have no patience. Then again (lookit me, I'm my own devil's advocate) the pat/shush crap can go for an entire sleep cycle. Hmm. I could justify myself by saying that maybe my stress levels are more tweaked than I realise by this 24 hour duty, lone parent gig, but that'd be a cop out because I'm probably just a horrible person. I mean, listen to me. I'm an abusive mother on the inside, even if I haven't actually thwacked him yet. *heavy sigh*

If he cries though, its a different thing. Like when he cried the other day when he wee'd on himself while being cleaned up after a poo crisis and ended up lying in a pool of poopy wee. That kind of helpless woe breaks my heart and I have to cuddle him up and make it better, which I did as soon as I'd dunked him under the shower and washed off the debris. Crying and fussing are polar opposites in my little book of parenting rulz. Crying I can handle, need to handle even, but the fussing? Tips me over to the dark side.

It's funny, though not in a hardihar kind of way, the distinction between what winds me up and what doesn't filter through the cottonwool in my ears that is motherhood because as I write this, Daniel is rolling around on the floor next to me shrieking and squealing and getting a real kick out of his new-found vocal range, and the cacophony is barely registering with me. It's certainly not stressing me out.

I worry so much about doing the wrong thing because crying it out seems like it's the easy option when what I shopuld be doing is examining the minutiae of his pre nap environment so I can sort out a peaceful, fairy tale solution. I didn't admit to it yesterday but that day when he didn't sleep? I left that little shrieking innocent alone in his bed for his forty five minute shit fits because I thought, if he doesn't shut the fuck up, I'm gonna throw him out the window, and I didn't admit to it, any of it, because I'm ashamed. :(

Logically, I know crying it out is NOT the easy option because Oh. My. God. Listening to your baby cry piteously for ever is NOT easy.

He's such an easy baby in every other way. I should give him this with grace, yannow? I mean, seriously, even when he's exhausted, he's not grizzly. Granted, he looks like a little ghoul, what with the pale skin and the huge bags under his eyes, but he'll still crack a smile and not be an annoying little fuck. On the one hand, I'm thinking ridiculous thoughts like '"Look shithead, you have an easy life. Every one of your needs are met, and I have only two, and they're not being met, so how about meeting one of mine? I need you to stop being an asshat and I need you to go to sleep. Pick one and make your mama's day", and on the other I'm all "Err, aibs? You're bargaining with a baby".

Oy.