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.

Knitwit

I'm teaching myself to knit.* My mother knits, in fact I think she even knitted a lot of my baby clothes, seeing as when I was born it was the tail end of winter and we lived in Melbourne (I know she didn't make any for my sister, born mid-summer in Darwin, that would probably have constituted child abuse). She tried teaching me when I was younger, and in fact I think I even made a scarf. But I am 27 now, and I can't have been much older than 8 then, and with nothing in the intervening years, I couldn't remember anything other than "two sticks, wrap the wool.. um.. help?" which isn't really that useful.

To be Absolutely Honest, mum showed me again last year when she was up for a weekend, and I wanted to make a blanket for Gosling (who so far has a beautiful Steve, and blue hand-me-downs from Critter). But, in true mum-manner, she cast on for me, then showed me how to make the stitches, believing that casting on would be too hard for me. Um, hello? I'm 27, make clothes without patterns, and have taught myself to sew and cook, but casting on is too difficult? Alrighty then.

Anyway.

The knitting went slowly for a while last year, a row here, a row there, whenever I had a free moment, but then summer came along and I got more interested in sewing. And stopped knitting until a couple of weeks ago. By which point I had forgotten everything and had to find instructional videos online. Which would have been easier if our internet hadn't decided to play up on the night I decided to pick up my knitting. Sigh.

I've discovered that I'm actually not too bad at it. I can in fact cast on -and off!! - by myself, and while I'm not a speed knitter by any stretch of the imagination, I don't feel like I'm going at an absolute snail's pace, either. So far I've limited myself to the knit-stitch. I know my tendencies to jump in at the deep end, but I don't want to confuse myself, get frustrated, and give up. So until I've finished at least 2 more blocks, there will be no purling for me.

I've also discovered that I can knit and watch TV at the same time. Not only does it give me something to occupy my hands with - something WARM to occupy my hands with on these cold, cold nights (we still don't have any heating), but I knit better when I'm slightly distracted and not paying full attention. As soon as I start thinking too hard about the stitches, my speed drops off, and my tension ends up all over the shop.

Gosling's blanket is not going to be a masterpiece. I haven't managed any major mess-ups so far, but my tension is still wonky, and I am, after all, a beginner. But I will have made it with love, with my own two hands, and by the time its finished, I should be a fairly accomplished knitter.




*Interesting note - I originally spelled this "teasing myself to knot". Which is just as appropriate. Knitting is a lot like one giant knot, and I'm almost certain I'm teasing myself as much as teaching.

Shoelaces

Critterbug started school in February. He is 5 - he'll be 6 in September. Until now he's has shoes with some form of velcro fastening, because thats really all there is around. But this year he also started playing Auskick (little kid's AFL - aussie football). He's incredibly uncoordinated, but he has fun, and he looks cute in his uniform.

Theres just one problem. The spikes. They have laces.

He's a smart kid. He can count by tens, by twos, and probably fives if I asked him. He can do simple addition and subtraction sums, and is reading and writing amazingly well - if you ignore the fact that he seems unable to differentiate between capital and lowercase letters. He just picks one at random with no thought as to what should be used. He also uses words like "delectable" to describe dinner. No, I don't know where he picked that up.

Do to the smarty-pants factor, he's picking up the whole shoe-tying thing pretty well. He's got the concept, just needs a little reminding occasionally, and his complete and utter lack of coordination doesnt seem to be hindering him too much.

No, the problem isn't with him. Its with me.

Oh don't be stupid, of course I can tie my laces. We weren't allowed to play in the playground at school until we could tie our laces, becasue the teachers refused to tie everyones shoes at the end of lunch everday, and we had to take our shoes off to play. I learned pretty quick.

The problem isn't that I can't tie my laces, the problem is that I can't tie his.

My husband taught him how, and he does his VERY DIFFERENTLY. I can't make my fingers do his way.

• Cross the laces, tuck one under, pull tight. CHECK.
• Make a loop. CHECK.
• Wrap the other lace around the loop. CHECK.
• Pull the wrapped lace through the hole and form a second loop, pulling it tight. NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He makes a loop BEFORE he pushes it through the hole!!! I CAN'T DO IT!! I get in theory that you end up with the same result, I can see that you get the same result, but I can't make my fingers do it! They get all twisted and dumb and just won't do it!!

And it's made me curious. Is this simply an individual difference, caused by someone in our respective pasts figuring out different ways to do it, or is it a larger scale difference, anerican V australian/english?

I'm so tempted to just have the kid use bunny ears. Make my life easier by far.

I never thought I would be so excited about my pantry.

The kitchen in our new house is odd. Decent amount of counter space, though not as much as I would like, decent sized sink, huge fridge space, TINY PANTRY CUPBOARD. Its about a foot wide, and has nowhere near enough shelves to make good use of the available space. Fortunately, theres a lot of other cupboards in the kitchen. A LOT. so the oddly tall one in the middle of one of the counters has been designated pantry#2.

Hubby took the doors off for me a couple days ago. So now, I can work on the counter in front of it without constantly having to move everything to get stuff out. BIG YAY.

However, because its open, I had to do some reorganising. Only relatively 'nice looking' things are in it now - my cansiters and old coffee jars full of herbs and spices. And my recipe box.

Alos, whoever lived here before was very clever. The bottom shelf is fixed, unlike the rest, and is quite high up. Underneath it they've affixed some hooks, which allow me to hang my measuring cups&spoons, AND oven mits, so they're always handy and I don't have to go searching for them! WOOT! Easy access to utensils most likely to be used over there, and plenty of room underneath for my canisters.

My computer is still borked, and hubby's isn't accepting the memory card from the camera at the moment, but as soon as I get it sorted, rest assured, you WILL be bombarded with before and after shots of my food storage.

I still can't believe how excited I am about this.

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.