I Feel Old

The cupcakes I made for my birthday

It was my birthday on friday. I turned 28. Everyone keeps telling me that I'm still just a baby, but I tell you, I feel old at the moment. The weather is making my knees hurt, I just want to curl up in the corner and knit. Or die, that would stop the pain.

I'm not looking forward to next birthday, but I am looking forward to a few months time when the weather heats up and the pain recedes a little. Also, there should be FLOWERS!!

Until then I'm laying claim to the blankets and the asprin. And the chocolate.

P-a-l-n. Plan.

Today's plan, in not-necessarily-correct- order:

• eat breakfast (yes, I really do need to remind myself to eat breakfast) (done!)
• get the boy safely to school (done!)
• vacuum the whole house
• comfort Gosling because the vacuum is a scary hellbeast
• find something to do in the bathroom while Gosling sits on the loo for half an hour refusing to 'go'
• make applesauce
• sleep when Gosling sleeps
• laundry - kid clothes
• laundry - nappies
• knit more of Gosling's blanket (and possibly finish the last 2 fingers on the glove)
• get the boy safely home from school
• work on some maths with Critter
• bathe both children
• leftovers for dinner
• spicks&specks, 9pm, ABC2
• make the husband choclate cake for dessert (microwave mugcake)

I suspect they won't all happen. The main ones are vacuuming, laundry, and Critter-school related. You think bathing should be a priority? My kids have just as sensitive skin as I do, and if they (or I for that matter) bathe everyday, there is much dryness and itchiness and pain and rashing. Skipping a day for baths is not a problem. Bathing them too often IS a problem. They get washed everyday - hands, feet, faces (and backside for the girl because hello, nappy changes) - but they don't have a BATH everyday.

Blah Blah Blah

• I'm knitting gloves.
• With only 2 needles.
• From a pattern designed for double-pointed needles.
• Which I'm altering to knit flat AS I GO.
• I may in fact be insane.
• We finally collected paintings from mum's house and hung them up here.
• Its amazing what a few landscapes will do to break up the expanse of lemon-yellow.
• I really need to get back into the habit of shopping at Aldi.
• And baking bread.
• And making yoghurt.
• I need more clothes-line.
• In winter I can only hang one load of wash.
• I have to hang on every second line or the clothes don't dry because they are too close together.
• This didn't seem to be an issue a few months ago when it was warmer/less rainy.
• This means I am using the machine EVERY SINGLE DAY when you count all the loads of nappies and cat-pee soaked rags I have to do.
• Our almost 14yr old cat can't seem to stay in his tray, so I have to clean pee off the floor EVERY SINGLE DAY.
• Gosling made use of the toddler toilet seat yesterday.
• There was a lot of applause and exclamations of "good girl!!!"
• The second time I put her on she fell off and bumped/scratched her head.
• I expect she won't be very enthusiastic about sitting on it today.
• I need to clear out her drawers.
• How can someone so small have so many clothes?
• Because she makes such a mess of them feeding herself with a spoon.
• And now she's shaking her bed so its probably time to go get her up.
• Bye.

Metabolism

I love weetbix. Just like any good Australian. I love them with a little bit of brown sugar, and enough milk that the outside softens just a touch, but the inside is still crunchy. This necessitates eating them rather quickly.

The fact that I love weetbix so much, is actually one of the reasons I haven't eaten them for a few years. I love them TOO much.

Something that is often asked on ads is how many weetbix you can eat. The serving suggestion is 2, but many sportsmen claim to eat 6, or 8. Football players mostly, big burly guys that you expect to eat half a cow for dinner and still have room for dessert. Or swimmers, who burn so much energy they are constantly eating just to stay in shape.

When I was 18, I would eat 10.

10 weetbix for breakfast. With sugar and milk. A cup of milk with each set of weetbix. Eaten by 2, that makes over a litre. A good tablespoon of sugar spread over the two weetbix, 5 times over, makes half a cup. and then I would have a glass of orange juice.

This didn't stop me eating during the rest of the day, either. When I was at school, I would eat two sandwiches for lunch - thats 4 slices of bread, 2-4 slices of cheese, and 2-4 slices of ham. Plus an apple, plus a muesli bar. And a glass of juice with lunch.

When I was working for my father, at 19, I didn't often have sandwiches for lunch. Instead I'd go to the local bakery and get a loaf of their cheese and bacon bread. And a sweet bun. And a 600ml carton of chocolate milk. And eat it all.

Dinner wasn't any better. If we had pizza, I would eat a pizza. By myself. Thin crust, yes, but not home-made, and I'd eat 1/3 of the loaf of garlic bread too. Milk with dinner as well.

Sometimes I made myself pasta - from a packet. You know the kind - add milk, water and butter, microwave for 10 minutes. Serves four. I'd eat the whole packet, plus a couple slices of bread to mop up the sauce.

What did I look like when I used to eat so much?


I looked like that. That is a 17 year old Sarah. Who hadn't started eating 10 weetbix at a time yet, but would regularly eat 6 (with all the accompanying sugar and milk) and one time ate 4 cheeseburgers, 20 chicken nuggets, 3 large fries and a thickshake within half an hour, then went to the movies and had a large popcorn and three packets of sweets (snakes, maltesers and violet crumbles for anyone wondering). I looked approximately the same until I had my son when I was 22.

HOW COULD I LOOK LIKE THAT????? On a day when I ate 10 weetbix for breakfast (with milk, sugar, and orange juice), pullapart for lunch (with finger bun and chocolate milk), and pizza for dinner (with garlic bread and milk) I would easily consume 5000 calories. Thats nearly 3 times what my current suggested intake is.

I HATE my metabolism.

Ponderous Thoughts

Jenni at One Thing has posted a series of "would you rather" questions, asking about things like Twilight, vomit, Robert Downey Jr., and sheep's brains. (Um.. not all in the same question.. that would be weird.) The last question was "Would you rather answer all of these questions, or come up with 10 of your own?" I answered her questions, as I'm not sure I'm capable of coming up with 10 of my own, but there are 2 that I've thought about quite a bit over the years.

The first one is easy, and coming up a lot at the moment: Would you rather keep coughing all night, or actually take some of that disgusting cough mixture?

Coughing usually wins. That stuff truly is FOUL. And it doesn't seem to have much of an impact on my cough.

The second one is harder, but one that I'm extremely unlikely to ever have to properly think about again. Would you rather go into labour entirely alone, with no opportunity to get someone to help, or have your waters break spectacularly in the middle of a shopping centre?

Hmm. Solo Birth, or Extreme Embarrassment? Before I had kids (and I used to ponder this while I was pregnant with Critter, so I'm really not just making this up), I would have taken the Solo Birth. I probably would have died of embarrassment if my waters broke in the middle of a shopping centre, and women all around the world have babies all the time, without the aid of a plethora of medical staff. We've been doing it for thousands of years. Our bodies are MADE to do it.

Then I had Critter. I was in labour for only 4 hours, he got stuck, and I lost a lot of blood. I was on iron tablets for over a year to get my iron count back up, and I have NEVER had a problem with iron levels. After that, I started thinking that maybe I wouldn't be one of those women who could do the whole solo birth thing. Then again, my mother had fast labours, and hers were relatively uneventful.

And then, I had Gosling.

Knowing that a four hour labour with the first child is VERY FAST, and that labours tend not to get longer with subsequent children, my husband already insisted that we head to the hospital at the first signs of labour. In the end that wasn't necessary. At my 39 week check they ended up deciding I needed an emergency c-section, when the baby's heartbeat dropped so low I thought the machines were just picking up me. That was probably the most terrifying day of my life.

If I ever get pregnant again, Solo Birth is not going to be an option. I will camp out on the hospital doorstep for the last month if necessary. I am just not someone who can have a baby alone. I hate having babies in the hospital. I hate the fact that pregnancy is treated as a disease as much as a natural process, and that birth is considered impossible without medical intervention. But, without medical intervention, there's a possibility that I could have died having my first child, or that my second would never have made it out alive.

And really, after an open-door hospital birth and a c-section, so many people have seen me naked that a little amniotic fluid in the middle of Westfield probably wouldn't even phase me.

The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Adorable Shoes

Yesterday, we bought Gosling her first pair of shoes*. Gosling has only been walking for a few weeks** and athough she can make it from one end of the house to the other, she still often does so with frequent falling. If she's going down even the slightest slope, she buils up speed faster than she can figure out how to stop, and ends up smashing her face most spectacularly. She can walk, but she's still relatively unsteady on her feet.

The shoes aren't helping.

I wasn't insane enough to buy her 'proper' shoes, with hard soles and buckles and who knows what else - these are soft leather shoes with suede soles, harder than socks, certainly, but soft and flexible enough to move with her feet.

She hates them.

They are absolutely adorable, a soft pink, with embroidered flowers and just a touch of sparkle. The kind of shoes I would have loved when I was a little girl, but always had to put back in favour of sensible black that I could wear to school.***

She cries when I make her wear them.

Looking concerned about the shoe situation.

It breaks my heart. I put her shoes on, and she sits, and looks at them. She starts to stand up, then sits again, and her face falls. Tears well in her eyes, her lower lip juts out, and then her whole face starts to quiver. If I pull her up and hold her hand, she walks with no problems. This is how I know the shoes arent hurting her. If they hurt, she wouldnt be able to walk even with me holding her hand.

Obviously, something about the shoes is hindering her ability to walk on her own. Her fat little feet can't quite feel the ground, and the straps touch her ankles where she's never had pressure before.

This was never a problem we had with the Critterbug. When he started walking it was the beginning of the warm season. We couldn't find sandals the right size for him, but running barefoot in summer isn't an issue, so we let him. Even if we had found him shoes, however, he was such an enthusiatic walker he would have just dealt with it, Within days of figuring out walking, he was running, and he hasn't stopped running since. Gosling is a little more timid about the whole walking thing, but doesn't have the luxury of spending her first few walking months barefoot. It is fast and suddenly coming up for winter, and even if we never went outside, our house doesn't have heating.**** She simply has to have shoes.

And I simply have to steel my heart against her giant blue eyes and quivering lips, and ignore her lying on the floor crying, all because of a pair of adorable pink shoes.




*My sister will insist SHE bought Gosling's forst pair of shoes when the bub was a few months old, but since they are unwearable and ridiculous, they don't count.
**Its been about 5 weeks since she could take more than 2 steps without falling down, and about 3 since she could consistently walk any distance worth bothering with.
***Schools here have a uniform, usually involving black shoes. I hada pair of black school shoes, a pair of sneakers, and sandals for summer. I don't think I ever had sparkly pink shoes until I bought myself a pair at age 22.
****We now have a functional oven, but even if I were to bake all day, every day, the temperature in the house would only increase by so much.


EXTRA extra notes:
1. Naturally, after I write this post, upon hearing awake noises from her room, I got Gosling up out of bed. I put her shoes on, determined that she would get used to them, and plopped her on the couch to take photos, because SO CUTE. There was some confusion and annoyance, because of the shoes, but then, she started smiling. And laughing. And climbing down and running around as if she was barefoot. This post is now meaningless and pointless and FALSE, but it was true when I started writing it, so its staying here. Also, the whole situation is just as likely to change back tomorrow, or even after her next nap.

Making me look like a liar.

2. Yes, I have a very pale couch and two kids, one of whom still smears food all over her entire body when she eats, and the other of whom is a 5yr old boy who does not understand the meaning of "walk, don't run!!!!", "stop jumping", or "stay out of the dirt". I obviously like to be frustrated.

Home, even in the cold.

It is mid April, and the weather has started to turn. The sky is bright and clear, amazingly blue today, and the sun is shining like crazy, but there is a definite chill in the air. Blankets have been put on beds (except Goslings - she still moves around so much that all it would accomplish is either a suffocated baby, or one who wakes all night crying because she is tangled), and I'm keeping my eye out for singlets (tanktops, wifebeaters, whatever you want to call them - sleeveless undershirts) for the kids every time go to the shops. Today is colder than yesterday, and summer clothes have been well and truly abandoned, even by the boy who runs so much I'm amazed he even notices the cold. Critter has tracksuit pants (his only pair) and long sleeves on, and Gosling is wearing tights that don't quite come up past her nappy. I would be sure to overheat if I were to wear a sweater, but I too have given in to long sleeves, and, for once, socks.

This might not seem that strange to anyone else, until you realise that I go barefoot most of the time - including outside in the middle of the night. I keep my feet bare if it is at all possible.

But my toes were slightly numb and looking a little oddly-coloured.

And we do not have a heat source in this house.

There are two gas outlets, one in each of the main rooms. The house however, did not come with gas heaters to go with the outlets, and they are rather expensive to buy. Oil column heaters are cheaper to buy, but they heat less efficiently, and are very expensive to run, especially as electricity prices are set to increase quite a bit.

Normally I would kill two birds with one stone at this time of year, and simply use the oven more. Roast dinners would become more frequent, providing us with good food, incidental heating, and abundant leftovers for quick dinners and lunches. Bread would be started in the morning so the heat from the oven would keep me warm while getting the rest of the day's work sorted. Cookies and muffins would appear on our menu with greater frequency.

But this year, our first cold season in our new very-own-all-ours house, our oven isn't working. The stovetop heats, though the temperature controls leave a lot to be desired (one burner appears to have two settings - veryextrasuperhot and lukewarm - and the other three will take upwards of half an hour to boil a small saucepan of water), and the grill (Americans may be unfamiliar with this term, I think my husband said it is referred to as a broiler?) seems to be in perfect working order (though with a never-stops-running 5 year old and a just-started-walking toddler in the house, I dislike the fact that the grill door has to be left open if it is on), but the heating element in the oven itself has decided to stop doing its job.

The fan and light are still functional, which tricked us the other morning and meant that our breakfast of biscuits and gravy was cooked at the last minute in the BBQ, after discovering that the oven, which should have been preheating for over 20minutes, was stone cold. I don't think we've ever used the BBQ before 10am before.

This house is less drafty than our previous residence, especially now my brilliant husband has boarded up the cracks in the floors of the children's rooms, but it is also only weatherboard and clad construction, not the hefty insulated double-brick of mum's house. The lower ceilings mean less space for hot air to disappear into, but the comparatively flowing openplan living areas, with only one door between front and back of house, mean it is harder to shut up a space and hold that heat where it is needed.

Tomorrow will be worse than today. Today, after a couple of days of slightly upset stomach on Gosling's part, I find I am almost out of nappies, and have tossed the clean, but unusably wet ones into the dryer (a practice I greatly dislike, but am terribly grateful for on days like today), instead of waiting for them to dry outside on the line. With only three left, and nappies taking at least a full day to dry on our line, the only other option was to let all hang loose and simply clean up messes - an option much better reserved for warm summer days, than chilly autumn ones.

A welcome side effect is the hot air being blasted into the house from the dryer - an experience we will have to do without, tomorrow. Tomorrow, everyone will be in long sleeves and wellcovered legs again, and I may even have to pull out a blanket to keep cosy on the couch as night falls and the chill deepens.

Our house is still lacking in many things that help to make a home. Heaters and a functional oven are the most obvious at the moment, but there are many other little things missing. Placemats for the table, paintings for the walls, shelves for Goslings room, shoe-racks for ours. A desk in a corner where I can keep my sewing things (instead of taking up half the dining table). Some sort of cupboard for the laundry-linen-closet, a coffee table and rug for the living room.

But even without these things, even without heat, and even with the curtains that grate on my nerves and sickly-lemon-yellow walls, with drab boring kitchen cupboards and bare lightbulbs, with leaking gutters and taps that only recognise the three annoying temperatures 'cold' 'lukewarm' and 'lava', I'm beginning to really like it here, in my white clad house with the green roof and rosebushes.

I'm beginning to feel at home.

Since Last We Spoke...

• We moved in to the holiday house. Which, by the way, was about 1 block from the beach. It took a few nights for me to get used to the sound of the ocean.
• Critter started school. (How can my baby be so big?)
• Gosling turned one. (Seriously! How can my babies be SO BIG!!!)
• We moved in to OUR HOUSE!!! Our very own house with ROSE BUSHES!!!
• Gosling's vocabulary consists of the usual baby babble, plus her brother's name, "hello", "nigh-nigh" (very occasionally), "dadadadad", and a brrrrrrrrrrrrrrm car noise, predominantly made when playing with a toy car.
• Critter can read. Not just "cat", "dad", "hit", but "where is my hat? this is my red shoe", and "the buffalo jumps in. let's have a swim". SMARTY PANTS!
• Gosling started to walk, and can now get herself halfway across the room without falling down.
• She is more likely to get up and walk if there is music playing.
• She is extraordinarily fast when she crab-crawls, and will do this if she REALLY wants to get somewhere fast.
• We somehow managed a 1.5hr drive with a 5yr old, a hungry 1yr old, and a terrified, blind, bigger-than-the-baby 13yr old cat, without anyone being injured or yelling.
• The cat has settled in fairly well. He didn't eat or drink for the first couple of days, but oddly, his blindness seems to have been a blessing. He can't SEE that everything is different, so because it all still smells like his people, he's just accepted that we've moved some things around and it's all fine.
• We bought a very expensive couch, which is balanced by the fact that we got another couch for the kid's area, AND a TV unit for less than $250. YAY SALVO'S!!!
• Our bedroom has a REMOTE CONTROL FAN AND LIGHT.
• There is one light in the house with NO off switch that we can find, so we're leaving it bulb-less.
• The walls of the house are all yellow, except the kid's area which is hideous 70s wood panelling.
• We can't afford paint at the moment, and don't have time to paint even if we could afford it, so I'm learning to live with yellow. I'm never going to love it though.
• We bought a wardrobe and toybox for critter's room, splashing out on custom stuff so it would match and he would have a decent looking room instead of the jumble he's been living with, and after getting the truck loaded up and driving for over an hour to get it home, getting it down the sloping front yard and into the house, miraculously without scratching the hardwood floors, WE DISCOVERED THEY'VE MESSED UP AND STAINED IT THE WRONG COLOUR. Yes, it looked paler than we were expecting when we picked it up, but we assumed it was to do with being in sunlight rather than a dark bedroom. So we took it back and it's being fixed.
• I have to learn to cook with a small oven. My cookie tray keeps the door open.
• We are also learning creative pantry-ing, as although we have a decent amount of counter and otherwise-cupboard space, the 'pantry' area is about 1/3 what I've previously lived with. Some of the other cupboards have been taken over.
• There is NO LINEN CLOSET. The enormous laundry is going to have cupboards installed, and part of our wardrobe is being taken over, because at the moment, there's no-where to put towels, sheets, or even toilet paper.
• I've discovered a laneway that turns the 5minute walk to Critter's school into a 2minute walk. Unfortunately this makes it tempting to leave Gosling asleep when I leave to pick him up at 2:40, and she's been asleep for less than half an hour after being awake since before 7am. I DIDN'T leave her, and never would, but the temptation is there, and I don't like it.

And lastly,

• My computer is borked. The battery life is approximately 7minutes, and the power cord has to be held at just the right angle and pressure or the machine thinks it isn't plugged in and turns off, so I've been using hubby's machine. THIS IS VERY ANNOYING, and means that I won't be around much, even though we actually have a decently working internet connection here, unlike the holiday house which had little to no reception and would cut out for no reason intermittently.

Fun With Photoshop

Clicky any of the piccies for biggerness

I love Photoshop. I only have elements, not the full version, because MONEY!! and I usually only use it for my own amusement, and basic photo-fixing, but I LOVE IT. I take millions of photos of my kids, and while most of them turn out nice, with photoshop I can make some of them even better.

Like this:


Cute, no? Helps that the subject is pretty adorable. But, cute as it is with those massive eyes, its kinda dark. A few minute with my trusty phtoshop, and it becomes this:


which is so much better. LOOK at those eyes now!!

Or this:


Also better, but decidedly different.

By using different filters, layer effects, or even just changing the colour, I can change the image quite a bit. I can make some interesting 'artsy' effects,




make my little one rather creepy,


or even make the image look old fashioned.






I LOVE Photoshop.

Accomplishments

Done yesterday:

• laundry
• chocolate pudding
• roast dinner - beef, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yorkshire pudding, broccoli, gravy
• scrabble with the boy
• standing practice with the girl
• far too many dishes
• more house-hunting
  

So Far Today

• I've been mostly awake since 3am
• the baby is being weird
• she stinks
• my eyelid feels like its on fire
• I have killed over 30 fleas in the last hour
• the rat came into the house
• I have no idea what to do for dinner
• the boy keeps arguing
• I keep yelling at him
  
• God loves me anyway
• that makes everything better
  

Ugh

I have about 4 posts half written, I'm just lacking the motivation to finish them off and actually post them. some of them might not happen at all because they won't be relevant anymore - time specific.

Last night's stint didn't help any. Gosling had me up 10 times. And then woke up for good at 6am because her brother's sleep-talking woke her.

And now she's sitting on the floor sobbing. Today is not going to be fun.

Someone send me soe chocolate??


In interesting news, despite getting a letter from Better Homes & Gardens saying my subscription was up, and me not renewing it (just can't afford it), I got one in the mail yesterday. I think the magazine people are stupid. Mum's subscription to a different magazine yields 3 copies. 2 sent here, and one sent to her address. They started sending the extra copy here after she renewed her subscription, and when she changed her address they started sending one there as well, instead of stopping the one(s) coming here. IDIOTS.

Oh well. They'll figure it out at some point, right? Or should I tell them?

Fighting those jealous feelings

My husband and I got married when I was six months pregnant with Critterbug. Now, while obviously we didn't wait for marriage*, I did wait for him. He was my first, and will hopefully be my only (since for him not to be, one of three horrible things has to happen). I was not, however, his first, and sometimes that bothers me.

I know all about his priors. Who, when, where. While some women prefer not to know details, my curiosity is far too strong, and I just had to know what I was up against. I also get a giggle out of his stories, and it gives me an insight into who he was, and therefor who he is. It doesn't bother me knowing about these other women. I know he loves me, I know he chose me, and I know that no matter his previous experiences, he wants to wake up every morning with me. But sometimes I get jealous.

There are women out there who have a piece of my husband that I will never have. Women he knew before he ever met me, women who make up a part of his life that I will never be a part of. Oddly though, its not them that I'm mostly jealous of (although there are occasional twinges). When we started going out, he was almost 23, and had calmed down a lot from his teenage partying days (he has calmed down even more since then). They knew the boy, I married the man. I think I got the better end of the deal. And to be jealous of them, I also have to be jealous of everyone else who knew him before I did. His best friend, who he's know since 5th grade. His mate he rented his first apartment with. The girl he had a crush on in high school, who only thought of him as a friend. And yes, there are occasional twinges of jealousy there too, but they are fleeting, mere wishes that I could have known him longer.

Who I'm really jealous of though, is those women who aren't in this situation at all. Those who never thought "how do I compare?" because there was nothing to compare to. Those who never thought "wait.. what number does this make me?" because they knew they were the first. Those who have never experienced any of the thoughts that have gone through my head over the last 6 years.

I wouldn't choose any other man to be married to, but sometimes I wish our lives had been a little different.



*This is something I both regret, and don't, at the same time. I regret that I was disobedient to God, but I most certainly do NOT regret the consequences of my disobedience: my son, directly caused by the disobedience; my marriage, fast-tracked because of my pregnancy (my husband believes in loooooooooooooooooooong engagements. like 3 or 4 years kind of long); moving back to Australia; my daughter; my husband's current job, necessitating a move for us out of the city. I struggle with this dichotomy of my feelings, but in the end I figure if God has forgiven my transgressions, I need to just forget about it and move on.

No Brains For Me, Thanks.

I'm still feeling very blah. Spaceghost has been waking up A LOT during the night, no matter whether I: feed her 'real' food at dinner time (or breakfast time, or any other time) or not; feed her when she wakes up or just give her back her dummy; change her nappy during the night or just leave her til morning; keep her in bed with me or put her back in her own bed between feeds.

As a result, I've been getting even further below my needed sleep levels than usual, and I'm feeling like a bit of a zombie. I shuffle. I find it very difficult to speak, and would much prefer to just moan hideously. I am by no means looking my best (although I did finally manage to get some new razors at the shops - why have they been out for so long? - and my legs look a lot better now), but thankfully husband loves me anyway.

The only decidedly non-zombieness is that I most certainly have no interest in brains. Mine may be lacking, but I have no desire to eat anyone elses. Or any part of anyone else for that matter. I might murder you if you get between me and my chocolate, but I definitely will not eat you.

Its all a bit surreal..

Spaceghost will be 5 months old tomorrow. She is growing like crazy, has started solid food despite all my intentions to hold off til 6 months, because I simply couldn't keep on feeding her 11 times a day (and she has taken to it like a duck to water, I think the poor little thing was hungry) and is generally happy.

So far, depression hasn't dragged me under, which is fantastic. I look back on the first few months of Critter's life, and theres a lot I don't remember. I mention to my husband things that Spaceghost is doing, and he says yes, Critter did the same thing. And I don't remember it at all. It makes me sad to have missed those things, and I'm so grateful that I get to experience them this time.

Despite things going so well though, I still feel a little.. off. Nothing quite feels real - its almost as if I'm in a dream. I love my baby girl to pieces, and I would do anything for her, but there are moments when I dont feel like she's mine. Its like I'm looking after her for someone else and I won't get to keep her. I don't love her any less, I just don't feel like she belongs with me.

I dont know if its because she was born via c-section (I had panic attacks for weeks after she was born because of the situation surrounding her birth), or because I didnt get to hold her for a few hours afterwards - they had to take her away to do tests because she had been in distress and they wanted to make sure there was ntohing wrong with her. Maybe it was because I was on such powerful painkillers after being cut open that I spent the first few days in a bit of a fog.

Or maybe this is depression hitting me in a way I haven't experienced before. I feel happy, so I doubt it, but my brain chemistry is a little crazy, so it could be, I suppose.

I'm not sure if I've healed completely from the surgery, either. I have a couple of friends who've had c-sections, and I need to ask them about it, but after a long day of walking or excercise, my scar aches. I've never had anything like this before, never even broken a bone, so I don't know if this is normal. I suspect it is, because it is such a large cut, and especially since I don't heal well to begin with.

I'm just not sure where things are going at the moment, and I'm not sure how to feel.

Feeling a Little Conflicted

When I had Critterbug, I put on about 25kg over the course of the pregnancy. I lost 11kg the week after he was born, and I don't know how much after that. Then I started to put more on.

In 2006, I started the CSIRO diet, and lost 15kg in three months. WOOOOO. Then the weight loss stopped, no matter what I did. So I gave up. My weight stayed mostly steady till I got pregnant with Spaceghost.

Then I started losing weight. I lost nearly 5kg in the first few months, then gained about 20, for a total gain of 15kg. Which I have since lost. WOOOOOOOOOO. (Unsure of exact numbers. At least 15 but I haven't weighed myself for a month.)

This is where the confliction comes in. I didnt buy maternity skirts. I bought normal ones in a larger size so I could continue wearing them after the baby. I wasn't expecting to lose the weight this fast. And now? They fall off. And I have nothing that fits. And I am still losing weight, so I am reluctant to buy new stuff yet as it will not fit me for long. And I want to keep losing weight as I am going to be a bridesmaid in November and would like to look decent. But that would mean I still have no clothes that fit.

UGH. WHAT DO I DO?????????????

I Come From a Land Down-Under

Where trees are grey

Grass is beige

Sheep are gold

Dirt is orange and red




And the road stretches on forever
All photos taken from a car travelling at 100-110km/hr (62-68miles/hr), some in the rain.

Generation Wired

~~I was born in 1982. According to most of the things I've read, this makes me Gen-Y, although I'm sure I read an article somewhere that classes me as Gen-X. Just.~~

I grew up with computers. I don't remember ever not having one in the house, though I'm sure there must have been a point when we didn't. I learned to type rather quickly when my father used the computer as a bribe in and of itself. Half an hour of Typequick and I was allowed to play on the computer - maths and spelling games mostly, though Alley Cat and some dinosaur game were also popular. Eventually he made it a challenge - whoever out of my sister and I learnt to type the fastest, would get $50.00, and since my sister had no interest in the games offered as instant reward, I won.

Over the years I've learnt to work various operating systems. I was confused beyond belief when my father first installed something called "windows" on the computer, and refused to use it. If it was my turn and Windows was open, I would immediately exit to DOS so I could find my way around. "cd.." and "dir/w" were my friends. Then, just as I got used to Windows, it changed. He installed a different one, and the 3.1 I had finally figured out how to work was no longer there. Suddenly, I had to tell the computer to turn off before I could push the off button, or it got sulky and refused to work. Not only that, DOS had become a hard-to-get-to lesser choice, despite being necessary for everything I used the computer for.

The changes in Windows since have been comparatively minor (and occasionally welcome - no longer do we need to push the off button after telling the computer to turn off), but the changes in the computers themselves have been huge. For one, no longer content with floppy-floppy disks and hard-floppy disks, CDs were added to the computer. The number of available drives became ridiculous. Especially since at one point we had 3 separate hard-drives, because our machine wouldn't accept a drive bigger than 2GB could exist. So we had A: (floppy-floppy), B: (hard-floppy), C: D: and E: (hard drives) and F: our super fast 8speed CD drive which was the envy of all my friends. Half my games were either on the big old "floppy" floppy disks or needed a bootdisk to run, but the newer ones on CD ran so smooth on our super-fast machine. And what amazing games they were. Games that took up so much file space the manufacturers decided not to bother spreading them over 8 floppy disks, but put the whole game on one CD.

It wasn't just computers though. Our mobile phone was amazing. Dad could take this phone anywhere and it would work. It didn't need to be plugged into the wall, and it had almost the same number as our landline. It would be put on the table when we went to restaurants, partly so everyone could see we had one, partly because at nearly the size of a house brick, it was far too large to fit in a pocket.

My father also brought the internet to our house fairly early for my peer-group. We were online in 95, and at one point we were paying only $5.00/hr for access, with a 28.8 modem. Super, super fast. And with 3 telephone lines (not including the mobile) I could chat online to friends in the US while my father sent a fax for work and my mother was on the phone.

My children aren't going to understand any of this. Mobile the size of a brick? 28.8 speed modem that sings at you as you connect?? 2GB hard drive??? Computer game on a floppy disk????? Since before he could talk, Critterbug has been "talking" on a mobile barely bigger than his hand. The only computers he's familiar with are laptops, and I doubt he's ever even seen a floppy disk. People may complain that my generation are wired, constantly talking on their mobiles, facebooking from their crackberries and talking into the air with their bluetooth headsets, but look at our kids. They have no other choice. Its a wonder they arent implanted with computerchips at birth.

Things I Never Want To Do Again

Drive 400km (twice!!) with a not-quite-5-yr-old who won't stop talking (despite having his own portable dvd player and 16 gazillion movies to watch), and a baby who feeds every 2 hours.

Other than that, it was a pretty good trip.

Sometimes I Disturb Myself

Yesterday, my fever-stricken Critterbug was watching TV while I did the washing (oh the joys of cloth nappies). One of the odder shows was on, one called "Sitting Ducks". Ducks who are friends with an alligator who get teased by the other alligators because he doesn't eat the ducks - he is vegetarian.

This led to one of my peculiar-almost-instantaneous-though-processes. I went through the following in the time it took to lean over and put one item in the washing machine:

• Vegetarian alligator.. Fully vegetarian, or would he eat fish?
• Things that eat fish usually taste kinda fishy.
  
• Hey remember that giant guinea-pig type thing that is classified as a fish?
  
• Probably looks kinda funny swimming around.
• Hippos certainly do.
  
• Hippos are cute.
• I wonder what a hippopotamus tastes like?