On an entirely different note....

My family is in Wikipedia.

I'm more famous than you.

And this would be why I hate summer..

Weatherwise, we don't have it too bad over here in Sydney. We had a couple of shocker days, and had to take iceblocks to bed one night, but its calmed down, and while it's still far hotter than I would like, it's now nothing like the south, where poor Lizzie has been melting away (my mother lives there too, and is still walking over 1km - about 3/4 mile - each way to and from work every day, because there are apparently no taxis).

But we have something Lizzie hasn't mentioned for a while.

As I was putting away the dishes from the drying rack yesterday (we do not have a functional dishwasher, everything is washed by hand and left in the drying rack on the counter to dry), I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. There were so many dishes it was hard to see what was going on, but as I cleared more and more away, it became apparent exactly what I was seeing.

The chopping board evidently hadn't been cleaned as thoroughly as we thought, because IT WAS COVERED IN ANTS. They were running around all over it, congregated mostly in one spot, which is where I'm assuming it got washed the least.

So I picked it up and dumped it in the sink, running hot water over it until I couldn't see any little writhing black bodies any more. Then I took everything off the counter, got out my can of bug spray, and I sprayed the heck out of the entire area. And the windowsill, where they all tried to flee to, and where I found another gazillion of the nasty little things.

And then I washed everything. Again. Twice.

I don't care about the water restrictions, THERE WERE ANTS ON MY DISHES!!!!!!!!!

Thirty-Seven-plus-Five

Almost there. Almost made it. Just another couple days, and we'll be technically Full Term. Not that anyone would panic if I went into labour today, I'm sure. Two days, at this stage of the game, is not going to make much of a difference. A month ago it would, but now, not so much.



I'm tired. I'm cranky. My hands and feet are puffy. I ache all over. I'm disinterested in food. And I've reached that point in the pregnancy. You know the one. The point of Get This Thing Out ALREADY. Most mothers who make it to full term get there.

For some it comes after 36 hours of labour, at which point the doctors usually agree, and start taking steps - generally toward a c-section.

For some, usually when prior children have come early, it happens as soon as that due date rolls around.

Some reach that point after some sort of complication crops up. High blood pressure, or PUPPS, or extremely hot weather, or any of myriad other things seemingly designed purely to make a pregnant woman's life uncomfortable.

Then there are those who never reach it, whose babies are desperate to come out early, and who spend weeks or months thinking Keep-It-In, Keep-It-In, Keep-It-In, hoping the baby will stay in just one more month, or week, or even day, getting stronger and stronger, and therefor be more likely to be healthy once out.

Last time round, I reached that point at either 39 or 40.5 weeks, depending on which due date you go by. My blood pressure was unstable, PUPPS was in full force, I wasn't sleeping, and I couldn't even step into or out of the shower (combined shower/bath, VERY DEEP bathtub) on my own. I wanted it out, and I wanted it out NOW. They made me wait another week.

Apart from the weather, nothing has been too bad this time. My blood pressure has stayed at a reasonable point, apart from a couple of high readings to begin with. Gestational Diabetes has not descended upon me (not that it did last time, but there's always the chance). PUPPS has (so far) not made an appearance, and apparently it is unlikely to. The bathtub is causing some difficulties, and sleep is a bit of a challenge. If I lie on my left side, there's a patch of skin on my leg that starts tingling and then it feels like I'm being skinned, and if I lie on my right side, my leg collapses when I stand up. Generally however, things this time are better.

So why do I want to Get This Thing Out ALREADY? Because people won't stop bugging me. Every time I wince, my husband thinks I'm going into labour. Every time I call my mother, she thinks the baby has come. Every time I talk to my sister, she asks if it's come yet (it's like she really thinks we're going to just not tell her for a week or something). I can cope with all the "How are you doing/feeling?" I understand. People are interested. That doesn't bother me. But honestly.

My whole body aches. I will occasionally wince when I move. This does not mean I am going into labour RIGHT NOW HUSBAND AND YOU MUST TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL. Nor does every phone call to my mother mean the baby is here. She lives a long way away. Am I not supposed to talk to her between now and when I am holding the child?

This has been happening for at least a week, and it's getting on my nerves. Yes, the baby has dropped. Twice. Once to basketball-under-shirt point, and then even further. Yes, this is a good indication that things are progressing. Yes, I am now having uncomfortable contractions almost every day. My body is practicing. It's normal. But the sprog could hold on for another 4 weeks yet.

I want my baby to stay safe and snug for as long as it needs, but honestly, I also want to just Get This Thing Out ALREADY!

Not stupid, just different. Very, very different.

“Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.”

Maybe you've seen it on a T-shirt, maybe a sticker on a car. Maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about, but its everywhere. Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them. Yet another dig at our other halves.

Sometimes its tempting to believe though. Sometimes they do things that are just so... different. Their minds don't work the same as ours, and its easy to mistake this for stupidity. I'm sure they think the same thing about us.

One of my jobs is laundry-put-away-er. This also translates to clothes-sorter-outer-er, since I'm the only one who knows what all we have. A few months back I told hubby I was frustrated because I couldn't fit everything in his t-shirt drawer, and he told me to just go ahead and put in storage anything I didn't think he wore any more – if he missed something, he'd ask for it back. So I attacked that drawer with a vengeance, culling madly as I went. You would not believe how much better everything fits now.

Anyway.

Since there was space to actually see the clothes, and since I'd noticed hubby having trouble finding what he was looking for sometimes, I decided to sort the clothes in the drawer in a more easily accessible layout: light t-shirts in one pile; dark t-shirts in a second; sleeveless under-shirts in a third; and shorts off to the side. It was easy to see what I'd done, no pile was disproportionately bigger than the others, and it ought to make his life easier.

Or so I thought.

A couple weeks back I saw him wildly rummaging through his drawer, and then he asked me if a particular shirt was in the wash. I told him no, but since its black he'd be better off looking in the dark pile than the light pile. He looked at me as if I'd grown a second head.

Sarah: There's a light pile, a dark pile, a singlet pile, and a shorts pile.
Hubby: Are you sure?
S: Yes, I did it when I got rid of everything months ago!!
H: Why didn't you tell me?
S: I thought it would be obvious, since everything in that pile is light, and everything in that pile is dark, and I've always kept your singlets separate!
H: Its only obvious now that you've told me!!

He didn't see. He absolutely did not see that one pile contained light clothes, and the other was mostly black. He's not stupid. My man is a smart man. He does stuff I don't even pretend to understand, and makes it look easy. But his mind just doesn't work the same way as mine.

Boys aren't stupid. Just different.

it gets worse

its spread. no longer am i content with re-arranging the house, now im cooking extra too. is this going to continue till spaceghost is born? how do i have the energy to cook extra, but not to stay awake to watch tv??

on an up note, mini-ultrasound today to check head position, well and truly head down. being so far along, its unlikely it will turn breech, though not impossible. i'll take unlikely though. its been pointing the right way for a while, and seems quite comfortable.. too comfortable almost, when it gets the hiccups.

on the other hand, i'm not sure how much longer its going to stay in... im getting occasional almost-painful contractions. ive been having the painless variety for a while - stomach feels hard and tight for a few seconds then goes soft again - though its sometimes hard to tell if its a contraction or merely the baby pushing.. they feel pretty similar if spaceghost is in the middle nad not being all pointy off to one side. but these ones... if im sitting too upright (rather than half lying down), or curled over too much lying down, its very uncomfortable, and just when it reaches the point that i think 'does that actually hurt?' it stops. i never experienced anything like this with critterbug, so i'm not sure what it means. obviously my body is preparing for sprog-arrival, but does the fact that its so... obvious mean its closer than i think? its supposed to stay in for at least 2 more weeks, and id really rather it didnt come this early.

not fun.

HELP!! I'VE STARTED NESTING!! act 1: the linen closet. scene 1: the mess

spaceghost is due to be met sometime in the next 2-6 weeks. this is slightly terrifying, very awe-inspiring, and is bringing out my non-existent cleaning instincts.

this would be ok if it translated into mopping the floors, washing the clothes, or even re-organising the pantry.

but no.

i want to re-arrange the entire house.

partly this is necessity. theres a lot of stuff in the house that needs to GO, and we really do need to re-arrange some things to all the furniture fits.

but for some reason, the most pressing thing in my mind is the linen closet. it does desperately need clearing out though, so this might end up being A Good Thing.



most people have a linen closet of some sort. a cupboard somewhere that is full of sheets and towels and table linens. ours is next to the bathroom, and since there is almost no cupboard space IN the bathroom, it also contains things like toilet paper, tissues, and feminine products.

it is a decent size, buuuuuuuuut only the middle panel is a door, which means theres a lot of stuff hidden around the corners thats hard to reach. and please ignore the colour.. my mother picked it out nearly 10 years ago. it will be re-painted (probably white) sometime in the hopefully not too distant future.



once the doors are opened however, we see that in this house, that decent size is NOT BIG ENOUGH. i come from a family of packrats. i turned 26 last year, and we still have terry-towel nappies (diapers) that my mother used ON ME WHEN I WAS BORN.

see that shelf of towels? remember what i said about there being more space either side of the door? ALSO PACKED FULL OF TOWELS. there are no sheets there. no tablecloths, no boxes of tissues, no more toilet paper (i stock up when its cheap. that toilet paper goes all the way to the edge wall). JUST TOWELS. it is an absolute nightmare trying to get anything out, or put anything in, or find the towels we need. some of those are probably 20 years old. some of them havent been used for at least 10 years. packrats, i tell you. as well as the big bath towels you can see, there are also teatowels and face cloths hidden in there. i can never find them. im not even sure what they look like anymore.

you may be thinking the top shelf looks comparatively empty. i cleared it out a while ago, and threw away, among other things, boxes of tampons bought in 1993. there is now nothing over a year old up there, and most of what IS up there is toilet paper and tissues, stocked up when cheap.

other than a hot water bottle and a blanket, im really not too sure whats on the bottom shelf. there are some more blankets, probably a doona or two, and possibly a tarp. i think there was some more hot water bottles? and since its my mothers house, sheets. i dread looking for things on the bottom shelf, because everything down there is so bulky. its nearly as hard to get anything out as the towel shelf, and harder to make them fit back in again.

and before someone wonders why we need so many blankets, let me assure you, THAT IS NOT ALL. we also have a blanket box that is so full it wont even close. and another blanket in my room because i cant find room for it anywhere else (although with the crazy weather the past week we've actually been using it), and 2-3 kid size blankets in the kid's room. oh and another doona or three in my mother's wardrobe. dont ask. i dont. it makes my head hurt.

again, you may be wondering at the relative emptiness of the next shelf up - where you can see yet another blanket, by the way - containing, as it does, only one layer of things. well i forgot to take a photo before i cleared out that shelf. i took everything out, and put back only tablecloths/napkins, one set of sheets, and the pillowcases that got washed without their matching sheets. then i shoved the cloth nappies in the corner while we waited for the new drawers/change table to be delivered. but do not fear!! for your eye-gouging pleasure, i took a photo of the pile of sheets that used to be in there, and are currently sitting in my mothers room, so i can ask her when she gets here on the weekend if she reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally needs them all, and which ones can be safely thrown away.

TADA!!!!!!

ALLLLLLLLLLL those sheets where on that one shelf. all of them. none came from the surrounding shelves. this is why i can never find anything. i discovered pillowcases my sister and i used before we were in bunk beds. which means they're at least 15 years old. i discovered sheets i'd never seen before. i found a fitted sheet im not even going to bother to ask about because the elastic disintegrated when i opened it to fold it neatly.

there are un-attached pillowcases. there's a queen sized doona cover with only 3 pillowcases. there are sheets so stained i wouldnt use them as an underlay. i understand the need for spare sheets. my bed has 3 sets - two lovely silky-feeling lightweight summer sets, and a totally ridiculously luxuriant 1000 thread count set that i got mega-super-cheap. the kid's bed has three sets (two simply wasnt enough when toilet training). the baby will have a few, because i know from experience that 2 is not enough for a baby. but there are at least 5 doona-cover sets in there, and only one bed with a doona. which has another set on it. there are also at least 3 single sheet sets, and no single beds in the house.

i dont have much energy these days, and i have a million other things to do besides my nesting-clearout, but i will be posting pictures of the progress as i finally get this mess sorted out.

wish me luck!!

even more you never needed to know about me

well its taken me over a year to get another 100 posts, so i figure its time to bore everyone with useless information about myself again.

that and i was going to go to bed early but my hips are hurting and the baby is being uncomfortable so i figure i might as well stay in relative comfort (compared to the pain of lying in bed) on the reclining chair for as long as possible.

1. i learned german at school for 5 years.
   
2. ive forgotten most of it.
3. and yet i still occasionally use german words instead of english.
4. i always wanted to learn spanish, because my mother speaks it.
5. i also learned french, indonesian, latin, and mandarin for 8 weeks each - we took each of the 5 languages for 8 weeks, then picked which we wanted to continue with.
6. i have rather large feet.
7. my second toe is longer than my big toe.
8. i have very high arches.
9. i HATE wearing shoes. my feet are perpetually filthy because i only wear shoes if im 'out'. not outside the house, out as in somewhere else. i dont wear shoes outside unless its high bindii season, and i only wear shoes inside if im too tired to take them off.
   
10. i find it incredibly difficult to put on a pair of socks that ive already worn. i can wear worn clothes if necessary, but worn socks make me want to gag.
    
11. even if i only wore them for 5 minutes before taking them off, and didnt put shoes on.
12. i used to learn piano.
13. i never practiced.
14. the teacher said i played very well.
15. i wince when i hear people hit off notes while singing.
16. except my husband, because im used to it.
17. i sing very quietly, partly because i CANT sing loud, partly because i dont want to hear myself hitting off notes
18. i cant stand hearing recordings of my voice - talking or singing. i hate my accent, and dont think it sounds anything like me.
19. my voice is deeper than it sounds to me.
20. i am very, very pale. i mentioned this in the last list, but its worth mentioning again.
21. i can, in fact, get sunburned in the time it takes to hang out one load of wash.
22. i had a tan once. a recognisable tan that is. i was about 10, and we spent a month on the gold coast. i do actually have a tan at the moment, but you wouldnt believe me unless you saw how dark my arm is compared to my stomach, and you aint seeing my stomach.
23. speaking of stomachs, ive only developed ONE new stretch mark this time round. WOOOOOOOOO!! possibly this is because ive only gained about 12kg, instead of the 25 i gained last time - lots of which was swelling might i add. but still, WOOOOOOOOOOO!! (even though i started out a lot heavier than i did last time too.. shhhh.)
    
24. my skin heals so slowly however that the old ones are still very visible so it doesnt really matter.
25. at age 13, my hips were bigger than my mother's were in her 30s.
26. and i was skinny when i was 13.
27. i am built to carry children - strong legs, strong back, broad hips.
    
28. judging from the pain, my body forgot this after critter was born. i didnt have anywhere near this much pain last time round.
29. i have naturally very loose joints, so the joint-loosening-pregnancy-hormones wreak havoc on me.
30. after critter was born i couldnt lift anything without my wrists strapped for over a year.
31. i cant do pushups because my wrists are too weak to support me.
    
32. im working on strengthening them.
33. i did ballet for 11 years.
34. i had to have 6 months of half hour one-on-one lessons consisting of nothing but ankle strengthening exercises before they would let me go en pointe because my ankles were so weak.
35. if i sit on the floor with my legs stretched in front of me and straighten them as far as they will go - ie. backs of knees on the floor - my heels are about 3 inches in the air.
36. my arms bend in a similar way.
37. i can touch my thumb to my arm.
38. i can tuck my thumb behind my fingers.
39. i dont really think its that big a deal, but everyone else thinks its amazing.
40. i find it difficult to type when my nails are short because i can feel the keys too much.
41. i hate sensation on my fingertips, so i keep my nails long to protect them from feel.
42. i had my ear pierced at about 8. i think. id have to get my school photos out to be sure, and i cant be bothered.
    
43. i had my other ear pierced at 24.
44. i think the first one must have hit a nerve, because it made me throw up, and i dont remember it hurting that much.
45. my husband just sent me a text and made me near jump out of my skin.
46. i think i dont have the footrest on this chair up high enough.
    
47. because i can feel my ankles and toes beginning to swell.
48. but oddly, not my feet.
49. good golly my phone is loud!!!!!!
50. i have never broken a bone.
51. wait.. i have. my nose.
52. possibly more than once.
53. its a little crooked, very sensitive to touch, and sometimes a little hard to breathe through.
54. if i ever had plastic surgery, it would be to straighten my nose so i didnt have to breathe through my mouth.
55. my ears are at different heights.
56. very noticeable when i put glasses on and can see over the rim on the right lens, but not the left.
57. my eyelashes are long enough that i have to wear glasses far enough down my nose to be uncomfortable because otherwise my eyelashes brush the lenses and it feels creepy.
58. actually, if i look up, my eyelashes just about touch my eyebrows.
59. but then my eyebrows are pretty thick, so...
60. there is a lot of food i wont eat.
61. some of it is because of flavour, some is texture.
62. eg. i love the flavour of oranges, and drink orange juice everyday, but cannot eat oranges. the feeling in my mouth makes me gag. also if the juice is pulpy. only in the last year or two have i got to the point where i could eat mashed potatoes.. the feel put me off.
    
63. when i was 2, i reached onto the table and pulled my mother's bowl of soup off and spilled all down my front.
64. the skin bubbled and the hospital put me in gauze wrappings.
65. i have no visible scarring, but the skin where i was burned is a little less sensitive than elsewhere, and doesnt tan (although as previously mentioned, you'd hardly notice anyway).
66. i also cant eat soup.
67. i have had 4 stitches, not related to childbirth. (i dont know how many i had when i tore having the kid. i thought i counted about 30, hubby insists it was only 15. probably somewhere between. i needed three shots of anaesthetic to get them all, i know that.)
    
68. one just above my hairline, when i smashed my head on the corner of a windowsill after jumping on my parents bed and falling off at about 18 months old.
69. 3 on the back of my knee, where a removed mole turned into a HUGE horrible purple scar and was removed, when i was about 6.
    
70. i dont go under very easily with general anaesthetic. when i had the scar on my leg removed, i didnt fall asleep until the operation was over, though i didnt feel it.
71. i get this from my father, who also doesnt zonk. my mother on the other hand doesnt wake up easily. first one in, last one out, and still groggy.
72. i have tea-stain birthmarks on my legs.
73. i have freckles on one shin, but not the other.
74. also my shoulders.
75. there is a tiny piece of oyster shell or gravel or something in my right foot.
76. the only pants i wear are pyjamas, and they all have eeyore on them.
77. i love eeyore. (the spellcheck wants to correct this to eyesore. that makes me giggle.)
    
78. i didnt have a boyfriend until i was 16 (rather unusual amongst my friends).
79. i regret him.
80. and the next two.
    
81. i met my husband a month or so before his 23rd birthday, and we started going out within a couple weeks.
    
82. that was nearly 6 years ago.
83. we moved in together when we'd been going out for 9 months.
84. a month later i got pregnant.
85. but we didnt realise (or were too scared to confirm it, take your pick) for 2 months.
86. positive pregnancy test 5 days before our 1 year anniversary, after a couple weeks of denial.
    
87. 4 months later we got married and moved to australia. (BACK to australia for me, since im from here anyway.)
    
88. i do not recommend having a wedding (4+ hours drive away from home, with your mother- and brother-in-law in the SMALL CAR as well as yourself and husband, and hence no room to stretch), packing up a home, and moving halfway across the world at 6 months pregnant. the car ride was particularly not fun. MIL is a worrywort, BIL was a surly teenager, i was dead tired and had a baby playing soccer with my bladder, hubby was concentrating on driving and ignoring his mother at the same time, and we were in a ford focus. at least on the plane i could get up and go to the loo whenever i needed. there arent many places to stop and pee on the road from las vegas to lancaster CA.
    
89. i also do not recommend high blood pressure during pregnancy. not fun.
90. i do recommend chocolate.
91. and glace cherries.
92. and cheese.
93. not just while pregnant. these are good foods ALWAYS.
94. when i was 19 and tired of everything, i grabbed a pair of scissors, and cut my hair till it was about 2 inches long all over.
95. this is much recommended over other things i could have done with those scissors.
96. i much prefer having long hair, although it is currently refusing to get much longer than my shoulder blades.
97. when i was 10 i could nearly sit on my hair.
98. i cheat with the colour. its naturally a sort of goldish-light-brown-blond colour... every couple months i go to the hairdresser and make it more blond, though for a while there i was making it darker. or trying to.
    
99. i dyed it black once. needed 2 packets of dye, left in for an hour before the colour would stick, and it washed out in about 2 weeks. it was supposed to last for ages, but my hair doesnt accept dark very well. even done professionally at the hairdresser it fades to half strength in about 3 washes.
    
100. i will never dye my hair black again, because apart from not being worth the trouble, my husband prefers my hair light, and i would do anything to make him happy.
     

attack of the dumb

my son has been suddenly rendered stupid, and i dont know why.

i dont know if he's just Being Four, if he's tired, or if theres something wrong with him that makes him incapable of thinking after about 4:30pm.

he's a smart boy. he knows left from right, can whistle in tune, he can read his alphabet, knows the associated sounds with most of the letters (although hes been doing weird things there lately too), and can read any number under 100. he's constantly telling me how much things cost when we're at the shops. and yet, today, its all flying out the window.

for a start he's insisting on reading everything from right to left, and upon being told to read from the left, he asked which way that was. i stared at him until he stopped being silly. then he insisted that the number 4-0 is one he doesnt know. he knows every other number except that one. it took 5 minutes to get him to call it 'forty-oh' and upon being told theres no such number, silly person, he looked at me as if ive grown another head. we then had a conversation like this:

me: forty-oh isnt a number. listen to the other numbers. if 2-0 is twenty, and 3-0 is thirty, and 5-0 is fifty, what is 4-0?
critter: um.... forty-oh.
me: no. you arent listening. if 3-0 is thirty, and 5-0 is fifty, what is 4-0?
critter: forty-oh?
me: no. go to your bedroom and sit down and think about it, and then come and tell me what number 4-0 is. (because at this point, after a day of him refusing to be more than 2 feet away from me at any given moment, including getting up and running after me and trying to open the door when i was ON THE TOILET to find out what i was doing; and telling me every 2.8 seconds to LOOK AT ME when im already watching him; and mummy? mummy. mummy. muuuuuuuummy. mummy? MUMMY!!!!! muuuuuuuummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, im ready to scream, and quite frankly 5 minutes of him being elsewhere will stop all sorts of things from happening)
critter: I DONT WANT TO!! (as he's running to his room)

this continued for another ten minutes or so, with him intermittently coming out and telling me that he doesnt know any numbers, and me telling him to go back to his room and think.

eventually it got to the point where i couldnt take it any more.

me: what number is 3-0?
critter: thirty
me: SO WHAT NUMBER IS 4-0!!!
critter: forty (looking at me as if he's been telling me that the whole time)


he is so lucky. i was on the verge of shutting all the doors and going to bed, leaving him to fend for himself till daddy gets home at about midnight.

ants in my pants

or wasps in my garden to be more precise. i havent been able to go out back to hang out the laundry for about a week, and ITS PERFECT DRYING WEATHER.

my son has been cooped up inside, because he likes to play right under where the nest is, and he isnt interested in playing in the front yard.

we changed dinner plans because my husband didnt want to risk BBQing with the wasps out there.


after locking the cat inside, and grabing all the cleaning rags i could find and blocking up the inch wide gap between the laundry door and the wall, and finding an old towel to stuff in the 3 inch gap under the door, and manouvering the Box-Of-Heavy in front of the hole in the door where the cat ripped the dog door out of it (my cat is about 9kg - 20lb - of pure muscle. he wouldnt fit through a cat flap, and the dog flap wasnt sturdy enough to contain him... he moved the Box Of Heavy on a regular basis until we put an extra 10kg on it), hubby sprayed the nest with roundup (we had no bug spray and figured weed killer would probably be toxic enough) and sprinted back into the house, and then when it got dark he smashed it and sprinted back into the house, but evidently some survived, because its being rebuilt.


im feeling antsy. the fact that i CANT go outside makes me want to. i want to just go out there and sit and read. or lie on the trampoline... not that id be able to get onto it at the moment anyway.

these wasps are nasty little rotters too. about 15 years ago my sister was outside jumping on the trampoline (different trampoline. it disintegrated a few years back and we bought a new one for critter) and suddenly she started screaming. there was a wasps nest around the side of the house, FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR away from the trampoline, but one had wandered to the back fence where the trampoline was, flew up the sleeve of her t-shirt and stung her under the arm at least 5 times. i am not letting my son go out there and play less than 2 feet from the nest, if thats what they do at 65 feet...


at least we have working air conditioning now so i can keep it cool in the house.

a rose by any other name...

my son, critterbug, knows mummy and daddy's names. occasionally he calls us by them, which results in hard looks. and usually confuses me for a couple seconds, since i am almost never called by my name.

my husband almost never calls me by name. i get 'love', 'honey', 'babe', 'sweetheart', 'darling', anything like that. 'sarah' is usually (recently) if he hears a bang and thinks ive fallen over, or in a fit of exasperation because i havent heard him calling/talking to me. or when ive called him by name in a fit of exasperation, and he retaliates. because i dont call him by name either. not to his face. talking about him to other people i will, but talking TO him... no. its weird.

but not because his name doesnt fit him. it does. when i look at him, i dont think he has the wrong name. some people dont seem to fit their names. you meet someone called george and just go 'no... you should be alex'. i never thought i should be sarah. playing make believe as a child, i always renamed myself emma. i still sometimes think my mum gave me the wrong name - i was named after my great-grandmother, sarah emma. something i didnt know when i wanted to be emma.

critterbug's name fits him, too. both critter, which we do actually call him, and his real name. one of the first things we did when we found out we were going to have him (after a few weeks of numb 'i must be dreaming, because this is an absolute nightmare' and terror, followed by terror of a different sort when i thought i might be miscarrying), was to buy a baby name book. we went through it and picked out the names we liked, and settled on a girl's name and a boy's name, since we werent going to find out what the baby was till it was born.

we found out we were pregnant in february, the due date was september, and the names were picked sometime before june. i know that, because we moved to australia in june, and the names were picked long before then.

this time... we still really like the girl's name we didnt get to use, and are keeping that. we've decided to use family names (as in names from family members, not surnames/last names) as middle names, so where critter gets 'lee', from hubby's father's middle name, the girl's name gets 'jacqueline', my paternal grandmother's middle name. even though my cousin already used it on his baby. WE HAD IT PICKED OUT FIRST!!! ahem. anyway.

the problem we're coming up against is boy's names. like i said, we had critter's names picked by the time i was 6 months, and weve been holding onto a girl's name for the past 4.5 years, but at 8 months, we still cannot come to a conclusion on boy's names. keeping with the family thing, the middle name will be 'dan' or 'daniel', after my maternal grandfather, depending on which fits with the first name better... but thats where we hit a dilemma. we have 4 names we like, and none of them are jumping out at us. ive always liked 1, but hubby insists he will call the baby by a nickname i cant stand if we pick that. im not sure if hes joking or not. we both like 2, but neither of us like the inevitable aussie shortening, which WILL happen. again, we both like 3, but dont like where everyones mind jumps at the mention of it. (nothing dirty!! just the inevitable 'oh.. from XYZ-movie??') he originally picked out 4, and i was skeptical. the more i think about it, the more i like it, but now he isnt sure if he still likes it, and insists he was joking when he picked it. he says he likes it, but its too oldfashioned.

we are doomed, and the baby, if male, will be 'spaceghost' on its birth certificate, im sure.

thoughts are running round my head too fast

ive been sitting here watching my stomach jump and bounce and jerk around for the past hour or so, as my husband watches top gear on the TV. i dont know why (maybe it likes stir fry?) but the baby has been excessively bouncy this evening. and it is all on the right side of my stomach.

seriously.

i feels like theres a bowling ball in my stomach, but only on the right. the left side is all squishy and empty. there is no baby there. its actually rather uncomfortable, and i wish it would move. i mean.. it IS moving, rather excessively, actually, but i wish it would move out of the way.

at this stage with my critterbug, i was incredibly uncomfortable, and very swollen. but i dont think i was in as much pain as i am this time round. i dont remember my back being this bad (after we put planks under the mattress - 40yr old cast iron bed with springs as support is NOT good support), and i dont remember my hips being so sore. ive put on a lot less weight this time round - 10kg so far, about 25 with critter, although i lost 11 in the week after he was born, since a lot of it was me being swollen - and ive been a lot less sick, with morning sickness subsiding after about 3-4 months, instead of continuing, albeit rather mildly, the whole way through.

being so close to babytime, im beginning to wonder what else is going to be different, or similar. will labour feel like hours of excessive period pain again, with no discernible worsening and lessening? (seriously.. i want to know what contractions are supposed to feel like, because i was just in pain the whole time till the baby popped out. i have no idea how to time something that doesnt give you any indication its happening.)

will i tear again? will i hemorrhage again? will anything go wrong, and will i experience a c-section?

will spaceghost be bigger, or smaller than critter? will it stare at me the way critter did? will it be as squeaky?

will i have the same troubles breastfeeding? will i be afraid to bathe it for the first few months again? will i sink so low i dont care when it cries? will i need medication again? will i notice?

will i remember enough to know when 'dry skin' is actually 'eczema'? will i notice allergy signs? will i finally figure out the 'different cries'?

WILL I REMEMBER HOW TO FOLD A NAPPY?????????

why did i sign up for another one?

things are not so cheery in the house of kaeus right now. the critter has always been strong. both physically (pushed himself up on his arms to look around the room less than an hour after birth. the midwife was surprised), and strong willed. lately the strong willed part has become... excessive. he will not do a single thing he is asked/told, and resists any and every form of discipline, right down to "look at me when im talking to you please."

and its driving me insane.

he has a pair of sunglasses. he's not allowed to wear them inside the house. he went and grabbed them a few minutes ago and sat down to watch TV with them on. i asked him to take them off please and give them to me, because we dont wear sunglasses in the house. he took them off, and put them next to him on the couch. so i asked for them again. he looked at me and grinned. i stood up to turn off the TV and he started shouting NO!! NOOOOOOOOO!! and nearly threw them at me trying to stop me from turning off the TV. and after i got it turned off, he turned it on again. discipline ensued. so did screaming. im sure the neighbours think im a child abuser the way he screams if i so much as take a toy out of his hand.

and it happens all the time.

it started getting more frequent a couple months back, and its got to the point that he is being sent to his room at least once a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

every child has off days. every child has off moments on good days. every child has tantrums when they get over tired/over stimulated.

not every child has them every single day, only an hour after waking up.

not every child has to be taken out of church because they wont stop swinging a rope around their head, and tries to hit their mother and take the rope back when it is taken away in an effort to get the child to calm down.

not every child... right? tell me it wont necessarily happen again when spaceghost is 4. tell me this is a phase.. that its hormonal.. that despite his apparent enthusiasm, he's acting up out of jealousy over the as-yet-unborn-new-baby.. that he will go back to only occasional tantrums and be generally sweet natured again.. because i really dont want one of Those children.

blahdiblah

ive been feeling spectacularly BLAH recently. so much so that i cant really think straight. partly this is caused by the dreaded baby-brain (anywhere from 4-8 weeks left. i refuse to let it come before 38 weeks), partly its the heat. I DONT LIKE THE HEAT. and the baby is making it all worse.

i lie in bed at night, all the sheets tossed off, wondering if i should go get some ice cubes to cool myself off, and hubby is curled up tightly next to me, sheet AND blanket pulled up to his neck, COLD.

this morning, he was wondering whether he ought to put on long pants instead of shorts, and i was wondering if i should take a fan with me to church, or whether i should just stay home and sit in a bathtub full of icecubes for a few hours.

we have an airconditioner in the house, but i feel bad using it when he's obviously cold - if it was actually hot id be fine, but evidently my heat regulating abilities are going wildly haywire.

and it wont be helped much by going to bed with 6 pillows tonight in an effort to keep my feet up and the swelling down.

only a few more weeks to go, and ill be so distracted by the little screaming wriggler i wont even notice.

only a few more weeks.